At the beginning of this year I was not in a good place, but I think I had come into it determined that I would not close this year feeling as miserable as I did then. At the beginning of 2017 I was stuck in a job that was emotionally stressful and had no future.  I went through moments where I felt very inadequate in my professional and personal lives, and I felt disappointed that I had not achieved some of the goals I had set for myself the year before.

February rolled around and things began to look up for me, and in March I began the interview process for my current job. By the end of April, I had relieved myself of my biggest burden: my dead-end job. It took several months of meetings with a career counselor and a month-long interview process, as well as a couple more weeks to get a job offer and turn in my two-week’s notice, but I had done it! Now I am working somewhere that I am proud of, with people who I can look up to professionally, and who are also great friends.

There are so many fond memories I can look back at in 2017. I went to two burlesque shows, one for Valentine’s Day and Dita Von Teese’s The Art of the Teese. I visited Portland twice, and got to see my sister get the first Master’s Degree in our family! I finally went to see a Dodger’s game, instead of obsessively refreshing the scoreboard on Google. I focused more on self-care, and put more time into my appearance as an effort to increase my self-confidence and invest love into my self. I also learned to save money without depriving myself of an indulgence here and there, and met my savings goal!

Even though it may be a little cheesy, I’m going to spend the next couple of days reflecting on what I want to accomplish in the new year and how I can go about it. In the meantime, here are a couple of moments from 2017 that I am looking back on:

See you next year!