New Year. New Beginnings. New Me.

So my attempt at keeping up with this blog has failed miserably. I told myself I was going to write about improving myself and becoming a better person. Well, I managed to do that but I forgot to write about it. So here I am at the end of the semester, end of the year, trying to fix that.

So much has happened since the beginning of the summer and throughout this semester. A majority of my summer things stayed the same until August. This past August my 19 year search of finding that perfect someone came to an end. I finally got to experience what it was like to be loved by a guy and made to feel beautiful. For the first time in my life, I was able to feel what I had never felt before. It was a feeling I wish didn't have to go away so soon. I met him in the beginning of August and left to go back to Vermont three weeks later. It was the perfect summer romance, almost as good as the movies. If I had to pick a song to describe it, "19 You and Me" by Dan and Shay is the perfect choice. Being with him was my best and worst decision of the year. All good things must come to an end, and as I left to go back to school I knew things would never be the same. We tried to make a long distance relationship work but being that ours was so raw and new, we just couldn't do it. Well that and it didn't help that he was a freshmen just entering college at the time we were together and his transition caused me to no longer be the first thing on his mind. We're supposedly friends now but I won't really know what will come of it until I return back to school in a few weeks.

One of the biggest changes in my life this past semester is definitely the bond I was able to form with people. Last semester, I was pretty shy and pretty much kept to my small group of friends without really reaching out to meet new ones. That started to change just a little before the end but there really wasn't all that much time once it did. If there's one thing my summer romance taught me, it was definitely that I needed to stop worrying about what other people thought of me and focus on what I thought of other people. It taught me to value the time I had with the people who are in my life. So this semester I took the time to reach out to the people who I have been blessed to get to know and have in my life this year. It is because of them that I have found my true family and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger. It's a nice feeling to have such a big family as my one from back home is much smaller and definitely something I've never experienced before.

This semester I also found myself more involved with the Dressage Team. We switched barns this year, so there were plenty of new changes for everyone. I now look forward to the two days each week where I have to clean stalls or do a turnout shift. The other two days of the week I can look forward to my lessons. My riding has improved as I was given the opportunity to show for the first time this semester. I can tell the hard work that I put towards this team is paying off as I was asked to represent the team in the co-op class next semester. Great things are to come with the team and the lovely people on it.

With all of these changes, I was able to find myself a bit more this semester. I went from being this worrysome girl who had high expectations on everything to this spontaneous girl who no longer cared about what did or didn't happen. I began to live my life day by day instead of by years from now. It made me realize just how much life I let slip by. So many stupid decisions were made this semester but I don't regret any of them. Well actually I regret one of them but it was a mistake I desperately needed to make. One of the things I refrained from doing in the past is cry. This semester I was able to find my emotions and actually cry. I cried tears of joy, sadness, and ones that came out for no apparent reason. For the first time in a long time, I became a human this semester. I still haven't bustled up the ability to be accept my tears in the presence of others but that ability to be vulnerable will come soon.

Now that the new year is here, I'm ready to keep making changes in my life to make it better. To officiate these new changes, I've decided to make a large change in my life. For as long as I can remember, I've had long hair that all I could do with it is wear it in a braid. As a 19 year old, it has finally come time for me to chop it off and experience what life is like with shorter, manageable hair. My hair has been one of the few things about me that I've leaned on most in the past and by cutting it I'm removing my safety blanket. No one can compliment me on my hair when they have nothing else to share with me. I can't hide behind my hair on days when my self esteem is low. It's time I start recognizing myself for the beauty inside my head and not what's outside it. Plus it's time people stop thinking I'm 14 all the time. By looking mature, I can be respected for being mature too.

2014 taught me more about who I really am. It taught me what it's like to be loved, both by friends and by that perfect someone. It taught me how to value each day as it comes rather than thinking about the future years from now. It's taught me to make stupid spontaneous decisions, especially because I'm only young once. And with those stupid decisions I've learned that I'm actually human and that it's okay to cry once in awhile. But most of all, 2014 is the year that taught me that making changes is the only way to truly become a better me.