The Jesus Year

Prior to my friend turning 33, I'd never heard of this concept of the Jesus Year. It may have had something to do with me being a heathen, but since it wasn't quite my turn to be 33, it also wasn't something to be concerned about. According to my friend, your Jesus year is when you turn 33 and everything magically falls into place. It's all about transitioning and transforming, growing into your true, adult self. I could get with it being called the Jesus year - it is rather magical to walk on water and if I could transform water into wine, I'd be the life of every party! Now that I'm about to turn 34, I only have one thing to say about being 33: Thank you Jesus, I'm glad it's almost over!

Yeah, 33 was NOT a magical year for me.

Before I start recounting all the terrible, horrible things that have happened this year, I will say this - they weren't truly that terrible or horrible. I still have all my fingers and toes, most of my faculties, and everyone I love is in relatively good health. I have a job, I'm surrounded by an amazing community of people, and I'm taller than your average chick. I don't want to sound whiney, complainy or ungrateful-y or put a bunch of negativity in the universe. My life is pretty good, has been pretty good and I believe will continue to be pretty good, possibly even fantastically awesome.

Great! Now that my gratitude to the universe is out of the way, let's talk about how this past year has been transformativeiin a really emotionally uncomfortable way.

Love: I was in love with Sexy Heroin (still!) and no matter how low I set my expectations, he managed to disappoint me anyway. (Really, a FB message shout out on my Jesus birthday? Not even a text?! SMH. #I'mnotbitter.) Boo. I met someone else and dated him. Yay. Until he got all freaked out about commitment. Boo. But I was able to let that go very quickly. Yay. And then got caught up with Sexy Heroin again. Boo. Finally I just quit all men, particularly Sexy Heroin. Yay.

Career: I was totally in love with my job when I was 32 and a half. A mere 6 months later, I was disillusioned, dissatisfied and done. What do you do with all that training and student loan debt? Who cares, I wanted out. And what did I want to be? Right, no clue. The whole prima ballerina thing was out and I was too old to be cast on the Real World so my options seemed limited. After being stressed and depressed about it for quite some time, I finally made a decision - clown school!

Friends: Actually, this area in my life has stayed consistently good. So to all my friends, I have this to say: Thank you for being a friend. Travel down the road and back again. Your heart is true, you're a pal and a confidante. And if you threw a party, and you invited everyone you knew, you would see, the biggest gift would be from me and the card attached would say, "Thank you for being a friend." *



Money: So, so little. So, so sad. What else is there to say? While I'm not broke, I am rarely content with the amount of money in my checking account. Do you know how exhausting it is to count every penny, nickel and dime? Riiiiiiiiiiiigghht, we're still recovering from the economic crisis of the Bush years. Still, I would like to buy a pair of shoes (everyday) without feeling a little guilty about it or worrying about my credit card debt (everyday). Yes, I know, it's that first-world drama sh*t. Forgive me.

Health/Mental Health: Overall, my health was fine. My knees started loudly complaining about working out, but generally speaking, it was good. However, I could not figure out how to make my booty bigger. Squats, lunges, running up the stairs...nothing. Does that count as health? Maybe that's more of a mental health issue. If you could imagine, all of these things that were not going right were making me feel wrong. Although I wasn't good at being depressed, I was getting better at it over this past year. All of these things were causing me to feel nauseous and giving me tension headaches. When was this "magical" year going to be over?!

2 more days.

Interestingly enough, a funny thing started to happen about 3 months ago. I relaxed into a state of radical acceptance. I stopped looking at how things were going wrong and focused on accepting them for what they were; only then could I actually make any necessary adjustments. This attitude shift is when more positive things began happening in my life. Work became more interesting. I started making a little bit of extra money. I started developing new skills to add to my resume. I took a vacation and was able to chill out and de-stress. And my love life...I'm going to keep that to myself, but I'm not sad about it.

I realize now that this year wasn't about the magic, it was about the transformation. Though this isn't the first time change and growth has happened for me, this is the first time I can actually see it happening and be present with it. It isn't something that I realized when looking back at various life events, it is something that I am doing and making happen. While I feel like this year has been very difficult, I walked away with this: things don't fall into place; you have to grab them, move them around and put them where you want. Otherwise, you'll just keep waiting for magic.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go practice turning water into wine. How else am I going to substantially improve my financial situation?



*All from memory, it's okay to be impressed.