It’s the last day of the year and I have many regrets. I’ll fill your eyes with none of them, at least not in full detail. Why bother? They’re in the past. 

Yet I bring them up because I’ve grown up with the message that we shouldn’t have regrets and, well, I think that’s unrealistic. Sure, the source of my regrets could do with more work which would, in turn, reduce the number of regrets–that would be fabulous! But I refuse to beat myself up for wishing I’d done things differently. Being unwilling to live with business as usual is part of my core and even though it’s a messy core, today I celebrate it. 

I celebrate that gut feeling that what’s been done one way for 7 years shouldn’t be done that way any longer.

I celebrate taking those uncertain steps into the unknown that change brings.

I celebrate asking wise people to give me their $5 opinions on the questions in my head.

I celebrate how wise people don’t shy away from speaking honestly, not simply shooting from their gut but digging into their reservoir of lessons learned then framing a healthy response that’s beyond tweet-worthy and makes me amazingly proud to know them. 

I celebrate the courage to ask.

I celebrate the time to reflect, mind-map, process, flesh out…and the wisdom to know when to stop and move forward…and the courage to move. 

I celebrate the willingness of fellow creatives/planners to give of their time to help me reflect in a way that energizes. 

And I celebrate the reminders that in the midst of all ^that^ my first priority is actually not my work–it is my ability and desire to daily talk with God and hear from God, a desire to spend nonnegotiable time with the one who knows who I need to be for the day ahead and how to help me be that. 

And I celebrate that voice that speaks clearly yet without force, giving me the opportunity to decide, to believe, to move, to exercise faith in ways I’d never imagined. 

And I celebrate his leading me to refocus, to shift my greatest energies from the easy space of work development to the harder space of being 1. wife, 2. mother and 3. neighbor. 

To that end, I commit 2016. May fewer of my regrets have anything to do with those last three.