light.

It seems really cliche for me to have a "word of the year" ... it feels really trendy right now to have that one feel-good word. That one I can write in really pretty lettering and plaster on Instagram on January 1st with the oh-so perfect filter for all the world { aka all my followers } to double-tap that picture and boost my number of likes { along with my self-esteem }. Which seems honestly like a terrible idea when I think about it because suddenly I am totally held accountable by some number of people that I interact with on a daily basis. So if I promise via Instagram to be kind for 2015 and someone catches me on a bad day { or when I've yet to have my morning coffee } and I pour all of my frustrations out on you with a { not-so slight } slashing and stinging of words...you get the picture. I write this because I am this person. This. Is. Me. But that's for a different post. I promise to confront my coffee addiction, hater status and desire to keep my social media life looking perfect while my real life is a mess at a later date.

Back to this idea of "the word". Despite my { completely ridiculous } hesitations, I really love having one, simple word to focus on throughout the three-hundred sixty-five days of madness a year brings. It grounds me. It soothes me. It draws me back into simplicity. 2014 was the year of surrender. I can't tell you how many times I found myself back at this word. Trying not to control, manipulate, over-schedule, hold on. Trying to keep my hands open, free fall into this abyss of grace, trust. I failed over and over and over again but having one word to come back to gave me some sense of sanity in the midst of insanity.

Light. That's my word this year. It's kind of ambiguous which is slightly terrifying for me. My whole life feels ambiguous right now so to add another gray-scale layer to the ambiguity has my mind screaming. But my heart and my soul are at peace with this word and they drink it in deeply...so it stays.

Last year, someone told me: "Put yourself physically where you need to be spiritually." And where I needed to be was in the light. I needed the light of Hope to shine through and break down walls. So I began to seek the light. I open my curtains first thing and let the soft morning light seep into the drab corners of my room. I sit on my back patio and watch our whimsical cat play with bugs in that afternoon hour where everything seems to have a golden filter. I light candles at night when I'm reading in bed and let the sweet aroma fill me while letting the flickering wick dance shadows across my walls.

As 2014 drew to a close and this blank, white canvas of 2015 came into view, I slowly began to realize that I needed this light more then I ever had imagined. So I adopted it as "my word" - my year long obsession with light-seeking has already begun. And honestly, I hope it never stops. Because I'm seeing how it's this beautiful, obscure, mystical idea of light that is bringing me back to life.