The Year You Didn't See

New Year's Eve is officially the season for scrolling through all of your friends' "Look how great my year was!" collages on all forms of social media.  Now, if you know me, you know that I am a social media guru...I love the power social media has to connect us and allow us to share what we love about the world.  I think it is a beautiful thing.  So, I'm not against the collages for the end of the year and all the sappy quotes ushering in the new one.  I've posted my fair share of them, and I'll probably do the same today because I'm a sentimental person.  I'm not bashing any of that.  Post that stuff; share the things that made your year beautiful.

But here's the thing...beauty isn't just made of the happy moments.  And beauty isn't just made of the big moments--the big game, performance, graduation, or new job.  But that's what will be plastered on all of our "end of year" posts.  And that's okay.  Because the sad moments, the hard moments, the little moments of joy, the exhausted moments, the quiet moments--those are oftentimes more special left unshared with the rest of the world.

But here's my challenge to you: Reflect on those moments and see the beauty in the whole year and how far it's brought you as a person.  See the sad moments.  And see the happiest moments of all--those little moments spent by yourself, or with the right people, that weren't monumental--didn't make it on social media--but were hands down the best moments of the year.

Don't forget the moment of looking outside and seeing a foot of snow, glistening in the morning sunlight.  Don't forget the moment when you were simply talking with a good friend and were overwhelmed with how much you appreciate them--more than could ever be summed up in a post on Instagram.  Don't forget the moment where you were running on two hours of sleep and literally felt like you could fall asleep in your chair.  Don't forget the moment when you watched the magic of theatre unfold before you and move an audience.  Don't forget the moment when you broke down in tears trying to frantically cram the night before an exam.  Don't forget the moment when watched the sunrise and were brought to tears.  Don't forget the moment when you heard a song and it turned your day around in an instant.  Don't forget the moments you spent crying and grieving with friends facing some of the most challenging days and events in their lives, bringing challenges no one deserves to face.  Don't forget the moment when you went out to breakfast with friends and laughed so hard you cried--about nothing in particular.  Don't forget the moment when you felt unsure, afraid, and alone in a new situation.  Don't forget the moment when you sat with friends until late in the night, talking about life and the future.  Don't forget the "happy birthday" wishes to and from friends.  Don't forget the family, joking around the Thanksgiving table.  Don't forget the goodbyes.

Those are just a few of the small moments, the sad moments, the seemingly insignificant moments.  The moments that may not make your "2015 was great" collage--some of them because you'd rather forget them and some of them because they weren't super "significant."  Embrace those moments.  Don't live in them, for they are the past, but embrace them.  And then embrace yourself, because those moments made you who you are today.

I hope that you see that the collage of your 2015 is a beautiful picture--each moment, good or bad, making it so.  Not the collage that's on Instagram for all your followers, but the collage that's in your heart.  The collage of your life.  The year they didn't see.

But you saw it.  You lived it.  Love it.  And love 2016, building the collage of your life moment by moment--the good and the bad, the large and the small.

Endings are beautiful, as are the beginnings that are sure to follow