“i’ll be bold, and i’ll be in love, and i’ll be 23.” - sam miller

in 2016, i hope to be the person that i wasn’t in 2015. i hope to make better choices in the people that i choose to be in my life. i hope to make better choices in the decisions that i make and the actions that i take. i learned a lot in 2015. i didn’t learn how not to mess up, because i messed up quite a lot. i ruined a lot of good things that i had going for me, but in the end i realized that they weren’t really good for me in the first place. so, there’s a silver lining in everything— i learned that i can be strong. i learned that i can overcome and come back from almost anything that comes my way.

over the years, things have happened. bad things. miserable things. things you wouldn’t have ever even imagined that i’ve been through, but i have. i don’t like to talk about the bad things, but i feel like this is the time to talk about them.

i learned that i care too much about what people think of me, and it has a negative effect on the way that i perceive myself to others. people sometimes see me as fake, and that i’m not entirely what i’m all about, but in all honesty— i’m always the person who sees the good in telling the truth. lately, it’s hard for me to be taken seriously, especially since i live in new york now, people think differently there. they take things that i say so literally and think that i’m someone i’m not, i try to defend myself and they don’t believe what i say because they just believe what they want to hear. but i learned, that i have to stop caring so much. i shouldn’t even care what they think. i know who i am. i’ve been through enough and figured myself out for myself to know who i am. do they need to know? only if they want to.

i haven’t gotten over my negative feeling of: “will someone ever love me the way that i love them?” i don’t think so. i think i’m destined to be alone. i’m so comforted by the thought of being alone because i’m so used to it. but i don’t want to be alone forever. in 2016, i’ll be 23. i want to date someone. i want to fall in love again. i want to feel something again. but, i’ve been hurt so much by attempting to feel something again that feeling something is out of the question. unless i meet someone that i’m absolutely blown away by, chances are i’m not really going to be into it. love is a hard thing for me to feel, liking someone is a hard thing for me to feel. i kiss someone but i don’t feel anything. that’s what i’ve been doing all year, and i hate it. i’m numb. ever since my heart was broken for the first time, it’s been bad. i don’t want it to be like this. but i’m scared, there’s no way for me to break this. and i hate it.

but i want to change. i want to be better. i want to mentally and physically be ready for anything that comes my way, good or bad. i want to take the good and i want to be happy with it. i want to take the bad and i want to take it like jessica jones would.

i also developed a new way of thinking this year. i thought, stop wanting. stop wishing. stop thinking. start doing. start living.

so, i took my dream and i made it a reality. i moved to new york city. it’s been hard, let me tell you. everything they tell you about new york is true. it’s brutal. it’s cruel. it’ll beat you up and i haven’t even had it as bad as other people have. but it’s been hard. i even had a moment that i wanted to come home and i haven’t even been there for five months yet. but, i got through it. that was a low point in my life. i was upset. i was hurt. i was angry. time passed, and i was okay.

but, not everything is okay. i think that’s what hurts the most. in new york, you have to keep going even if you’re hurt. i haven’t completely built up that mentality completely yet, but it’s coming to me. i’m learning, and that’s all i can do. i just need to catch up to the 8 billion people who live in the same city as me. they all know how to have this mentality and how to achieve it. how to own it. in 2016, i’ll be bold, and i’ll be in love, and i’ll be 23.

i can be strong. i can feel things. i can mute the words that are the voices in my head when go to sleep at night. i can live. i can be the person i want to be. i can be someone that i would want to meet.