The beginning of summer

My calendar advised me that tomorrow is the first day of Summer. I sat in my office and cliched it "What have I done with my life this year?" 

Nothing came to mind. The phone rang. I moved on. 

But then I noticed the calendar again. And again. And yet again. Okay I'm game, what HAVE I done? At first, nothing came to mind. Looking back at January 1st I realized maybe I needed to give myself more credit:

• New Years Day: left a relationship where most of my needs were not being met.

(I love this guy, this is not easy.)

• Started this blog. 

(There are a million of them so how is this going to work?)

• Started writing a book.

(Where do I even start? How do you write a book?)

• Stopped thinking about saving money and looked at all of the unnecessary expenses.

(Yes wine is unnecessary and so are Odwalla chocolate protein shakes) 

• Finally completing all of the house items that have conveniently been ignored.

(Stop lying to yourself. The gutters won't last another rainy season and didn't make it through the last one.)

• Added more exercise to my weekly routine

(Surprisingly this is a perk of my week.)

If all of this seems like a lot then I can tell you it feels like a lot. My carefree life of freedom is now one of endless "keep going". The contradiction in the life of freedom vs one of progress is that the rewards are less than the life of progress. My fulfillment level has risen along with my self esteem. Admittedly I'm often lost in this new world with no clear end result in sight but the learning and rewards along the way have been phenomenal. 

​What have you done this year?