I got a little bit teary reading my New Year post from last year. It’s bittersweet to see how much things can change over the course of a year. But it’s also extremely cool. You know what’s even cooler? Closing out the decade! I know the world probably has enough of these in them, but here is my decade in review:
2010 – Pining
I literally do not know how to summarize this year other than I had two insatiable crushes that never came to fruition, and I was a pining, whiny little thing. Sorry to the world about 2010 Hannah. Did anything else happen this year?
2011 – Friendship
2011 was probably one of the biggest years of my life. I became close with a lot of people who I consider to be my dearest friends today, thanks to a life-altering community theatre production of Titanic, and then RENT. One of these new friends managed to drag me off to the coast for school, where I met even more extraordinary folk, who I am so grateful to know. Graduating, moving away, starting school, meeting my soulmates. 2011 was freaking cool.
2012 – Growing Pains
I remember a lot of anxiety in this year over who I was. 19 is a tricky age. I was feeling both very adult and very childlike. Started to figure it out toward the end. Still haven’t though.
2013 – Love
I fell in love in 2013. That was pretty spectacular. I remember this year as having one of the best summers of my life. Beach days. Happy hours. House parties. Ice cream. I liked my job and I liked my friends and I got to do theatre that I got paid for and I was in love. 2013 feels like butterflies.
2014 – Anxiety
2014 was also a big year. Leading up to the biggest final performances of my schooling career, I got incredibly sick and missed weeks of school, and some exams. My 3 years of fun and frolic culminated in a lacklustre and exhausting performance, which was devastating. I did a show I didn’t enjoy and spent the summer vomiting up my anxieties about the future. Bright light of this year was starting my job at JJ and meeting a new round of life-changing babes.
2015 – Education
I don’t remember a lot from this year but it’s the year I started school! Good choice, Hannah.
2016 – Loneliness
My anxiety told me no one wanted to be my friend. I decided to reinforce this at every turn and became pretty sad and reclusive. Not my best year. It was, however, the first time I started telling people about my anxiety, so that was a nice turning point.
2017 – Discovery
My relationship ended. My blog started. I dated. I cried. I got unbelievably close with incredible people. I embarrassed myself. I got promoted. I did some really dumb stuff that was really fun. My relationship reignited. My heart was broken. I left my job. I did more dumb stuff. 2017 was fucking wild.
2018 – Finish Line
2018 wasn’t that long ago, but I just have memories of work and school. I think I kind of kept my head down and my eye on the prize. It was an okay year.
2019 – Change
Sometimes I don’t give myself credit for how much change I’ve actually gone through this year. My amazing manager gave me kudos a few months ago, and that’s when I kind of figured it out. 2019 has been a huge one. Bigger than I ever thought, but all in kind of incremental ways. I moved back to my hometown, lived with my parents for a bit, which was a tricky transition. I went on a long, hot vacation, which was probably my best decision of the previous year. I started a kickass job in a field I enjoy, where I get to be surrounded by smart, amazing women. I moved into a lovely apartment with my sister, making us closer than ever. I’m in a show for the first time in years, which is feeding my soul in a way I never thought possible.
My relationship, which started that sweet summer in 2013, ended. For good this time, I think. And that hurt so much but not as much as the last time because I know we did the right thing, and that we tried our hardest, and that it really was what was best for both of us. Sometimes, I can’t handle the enormity of this change. I think about my future, and the visions that I used to have aren’t there anymore. The cool thing is, I can start creating new ones. Just not sure what they’re going to look like but that’s kind of freeing in a way? My future doesn’t need old expectations being thrust upon it.
2020
This year, I’m looking forward to growing professionally. I’m looking forward to kissing a boy who makes my heart do that fluttery thing that I remember from years ago. I have a resolution: to write more. It makes me feel good.
Starting a New Year is a pretty cool feeling. You can choose to leave some things behind, and continue with others. Starting a new decade is bizarre. I feel like I’m supposed to be a different person or something. Move out of a phase of my life into another one. I don’t think that’ll happen though.
2010 
2010 
2011 
2011 
2012 
2012 
2013 
2013 
2014 
2014 – Nate D. Photogaphy 
2015 
2015 
2016 
2016 
2017 
2017 
2018 
2018 
2019 
2019
