2019, I’m ready to let you go.

This time, I’m saying goodbye to what could be the most challenging year of my life. It wasn’t necessarily bad, but it was challenging. It gave me so much to remember yet so much to forget. It brought me so much joy but also a lot of tears. It gave me so much to be thankful for but took away a few valuable things.

2019, this is my bittersweet farewell to you.

Farewell to the day I had to break my own heart because I knew deep down I wasn’t getting the kind of love I deserved. I had to choose myself instead of settling for being an option to someone else. I had to pick being alone again over someone who was never going to value me or make an effort to be in my life. I had to once again admit to myself that I made the wrong choice and it was not too late to right my wrongs. It’s never too late to realize that you made a mistake because you can always make things right again. Farewell to the day I had to break my own heart to save it. Farewell to the day I decided to do things the hard way because I wasn’t ready to lose myself again in the arms of the wrong person and I wasn’t ready to go back on what I always believed in just to make someone else happy. Especially someone who didn’t take my happiness very seriously.

Farewell to the days I saw my loved ones suffer; either from illnesses or losses or painful experiences. The days that make you reevaluate your life and your choices. The days that make you reflect on the meaning of life and security. The days that teach you the hard way that you’re not always in control and that God will always have the last word. The days you’re never prepared for but have to face anyway and utilize all your strength, faith, wisdom, patience and resilience. The days that present you with the hardest tests in life, the ones you didn’t study for, the ones you need to pass anyway. The ones that force you to burst every bubble and step out of your comfort zone. Farewell to the days that broke my heart in irreparable ways.

But more than anything, farewell to the old me, the person I was before this year started, the person who was fearful and confused and scared. The person who didn’t know if they could start over or make things happen or walk away from certain people. Farewell to the person who was stuck either professionally or personally or romantically because if 2019 taught me anything, it’s that if you can take every challenge, every setback, every painful heartbreak, every loss, every tragedy and every missed opportunity as a sign that you need to grow or change your life or yourself and you actually do something about it, then you’ll never have a bad year. You’ll always win even if you don’t have the right cards dealt for you as long as you learn how to play them. And if you can search for the truth within you and among others even if it hurts, you won’t lose yourself, you won’t end up living a lie. You won’t pretend to be someone you’re not.

Farewell 2019, the year that forced me to find myself and my truth, to stand on my own, to watch everything I feared unfold before my eyes, to make all the difficult decisions that I was running away from, to protect my own heart by breaking it over and over again and still survive, and still hope, and still dream of better and bigger things.

2019 will always be the year that tried to kill me but I survived and the year that prepared me for whatever challenges 2020 plans on bringing, but for now, all I can hope for, just like I do every year, is for 2020 to be kind. I hope 2020 is the calm after the storm. I hope 2020 is the year I thrive but regardless of what it plans on bringing, I’m ready.

2020, I’m so ready for you!