...And A HAPPY New Year!

Reflecting back on 2013, I have come to the conclusion it was probably the most stressful, difficult year of my life. I tried to chalk it up to something else, a year of growth and overcoming hardships, but let's be real, 2013 was not kind to us.  Starting the year with a debilitating hip surgery, having James get laid off not once but twice, having my 21-year old brother-in-law diagnosed with cancer among so many other serious family illnesses, not to mention the financial hardships we have had to endure from existing on my [small] income alone, 2013 kicked our butts.  Maybe the '13 should have given it away, an ominous number looming on the end of every date, or maybe it was the work of God trying to teach us each something greater. It wasn't what I expected for our first year of marriage and it wasn't a year I ever want to repeat.

As we look to 2014 we have great hope that it will be so much better.  Some huge changes are already in the works and I am already learning that sometimes you have to sacrifice the things you want to get the things you need. As I look back on 2013 there are so many things I know I could have done better, so many selfish decisions I made that should have gone another way, and by the end of 2014 I don't want to have those same regrets.

As I packed up our Christmas decor and boxed it up for next year I added a special touch--I wrote 2014 Amanda a note from current 2013 Amanda, describing our present situations and struggles and our hopes for the future. I wrote about the person I hope to become in the next 366 days and I even included a checklist of small but reasonable goals. I encouraged my future-self and even added in a few jokes. I'm already excited to open it next Christmas.

As I put away all our Christmas cards from friends and family I also found our Christmas card from last year. I put them side by side and I was amazed to see how much we have changed even on the outside. You can see this year all over our faces. Our first Christmas we were still so bright and shiny, never really having to put our marriage to the test or endure anything too difficult. This year I feel more like a wife than ever before--I honestly don't know how I could have endured any of it without my partner and best friend and I am even more thankful for him and this union than ever before.

 

So here's to 2014, may it bring good tidings and growth to you and your kin!

Doppelgängers

(n.) Derived from the German language, literally meaning "Ghostly Double". 

One who nearly or completely resembles another- but with no biological relation. 
A while ago James and I started watching How I Met Your Mother after our friends Jesse and Kelly recommended it to us and we really like it.  It's a well thought out storyline, it's pertinent to married life, and it's just 21 minutes of 5 funny people to wind down with at the end of a long day. But I'm not trying to write about the show so much as one episode in particular that we recently watched, in which the gang finds their final "doppelganger" (each person on the show had the goal of finding their doppelganger at some point in the last 8 years), and Ted (the narrator) makes a very poignant point.  He notes that apart from finding a stranger in a restaurant that looks "exactly like _(insert friends name here)_" we all become our own doppelgangers over the course of our life, or even the course of a decade (or less).  We look exactly like us, and we look remarkably similar to how we looked five years ago, but almost nothing about us has remained the same.  I guess it's not something everyone experiences, but a lot of people do.  I think especially for people that go through big life-changing situations there is just so much that happens it's hard to stay the same.  I know for us, the "little Doskocils," we feel so different than we did even two or three years ago.  I was recently going through my phone, purging camera photos in order to make more memory space, and the couple that I saw in all the photos looked so foreign to me.  We looked so little, and so happy, and so carefree. That's not to say that we aren't happy anymore, but real life hit us like a ton of bricks since then and now things are just a little harder sometimes.  But there are also things we've lived and accomplished now that I could have never imagined for us back then, and I'm grateful for that wisdom.  I wish I could say we've found our stride, but in reality everything still keeps changing.  We love the flexibility and space we have to grow, and we love a lot of our recent developments, but there are still so many moments of uncertainty and times that I just want to quit being a grown-up altogether.  I think back to my goals I had in high school, or all the conversations with friends about where we wanted to be in five or ten years, and I can honestly say I'm only fulfilling maybe half the things I had planned for myself, but I guess that's God's grace that things don't always go according to our plans.  So I think it's safe to say I found my doppelganger, and maybe I'll find her again in another five or ten years, but I know I can't wait to hear her story and see what her life is like.