Last Post of 2010!

As I'm writing this, there's about 26 hours left in 2010. It seems like just yesterday I was sitting in a chair at my grandma's attempting to hold back tears and remember good things that had happened in 2009 and making plans to make 2010 better.

Unfortunately, 2010 began with tears (over something that know seems so stupid I want to slap myself) and, well, it didn't get much better than that.


I'm not one to write personal posts on this blog or, well, anything not related to books, really, because for one, my parents are strict about things like that and two, my life isn't all that exciting. But, I can safely say that 2010 sucked for me. A lot of it was that normal teenage crap...boy drama, friend drama, family drama...all of that lovely stuff that comes from being a teenager but a lot of it was more than that, like coming sososooo close to losing my little brother, who just happens to be the most important person in the entire world to me. (It's been months and he's okay now but I can barely even think about it without tearing up. I love that kid.)

I also have a habit of taking on more than I can handle, procrastinating, and then stressing about it until it becomes a health problem, and I did that a LOT this year. I set super-high expectations for myself every year and this year I did more than normal. For example, I'm taking 10 classes this year and at least 2 of them are honors classes and others require a LOT of reading/writing. That alone is hard work but then I decided that I needed to be perfect, that every single grade I got had to be at least a 95. The result was a lot of stress and growing hatred for classes I originally adored.

I also started or continued a lot of projects this year...this blog, PAYA, Brightly Woven Fan, a sekrit project for an author, a teen advisory board for my library, and I attempted a few others. Every time someone asked me to do something, I said yes. Because of that, EVERYTHING suffered, including this blog, which makes me sad, because I feel so strongly about some of the projects I started.

That said, when 2010 decided to be good to me, it was REALLY good to me. 2010 brought the first annual PAYA Festival which was just...fantastic. Words can't even describe how I felt about it. I'd worked for so long and so hard to pull it off and it was just amazing. I feel no shame in admitting I was really proud of myself that night.

2010 also brought ALA, which was my first major book conference. Those three days can also be referred to as some of the best days of my life. I can honestly say I've never enjoyed myself as much as I did at ALA. I met some of the most amazing people I've met in my life and so many authors that I look up to - Stephanie Kuehnert, Laurie Halse Anderson, Elizabeth Scott, Ellen Hopkins, Jeri Smith-Ready, etcetc - and got to hang out with James (of Book Chic) and Tiff (aka the best librarian in the world) and it was just SO MUCH FUN.

I also got a car (that I can't drive yet).


Those three things are honestly the only amazing things I can remember about 2010 and I still have a lot of leftover feelings about the bad things, so tomorrow I will be writing a long letter about all of everything I hated then I'm going to burn it and move on. Hopefully it won't be too hard to make 2011 better than that.

Normally, I would spend tonight and tomorrow writing a very long list of resolutions and goals for 2011 but, I realized that might be my problem. My expectations are always set too high. So, my one and only resolution for 2011 is just to live and enjoy life. It's time for me to quit wishing things were different and wanting to be more and have more and just ENJOY IT.


How did 2010 treat you? What are your resolutions? Anything you're looking forward to in 2011?