Ruby in the Sky

As Christmas and New Year’s are drawing nearer, I find myself and others (around me as well as on the internet) reflecting on the past. Not just the past year (although mine feels like it might as well have been three), but like everything. It’s the weirdest feeling when you realize that a whole year has passed by since the last time it was Christmas. Now, I’m not actually that much of a festive type, but for me, not only Christmas is coming up soon, but my birthday as well. And it’s just extremely alienating (if that’s the right word) to think of myself as I was one year ago. I thought I’d sum up some of the most important changes.

#1 sports

A year ago, around this time, all I did was play tennis, a 50 minute training once a week. I might have jogged on rare occasions, but to be honest, there wasn’t much physical activity going on for me. Then, rowing happened. A friend decided we would participate in the National School Rowing Championships (NSRK in dutch), and I joined the team. I had a few months training and then we went. We ended first of the 3rd final, which is the least good, but we did win it with a time that equalled the winners of the 2nd final. The odds were just not in our favour that day. I have been rowing ever since and in fact own 3 medals – not gonna lie, not exactly my fault ;).

Not only have I started rowing, but I also started playing quidditch. Yes, that I wrote about before. In April I went to the Elf Fantasy Fair, which is exactly that, saw my friends play it there, joined a team, now training every week. You know the story by now. Along with quidditch and rowing I have started running more frequently and, although I am not that great yet, I can definitely see progress. I am also still playing tennis (50 minutes, once a week ;)). All together, this sums up to training sessions 3/4 days a week and the occasional run. Not bad uh?

#2 open mind

To stay on the topic of that fantasy fair and quidditch; a goal I had for myself this year, was to be open to new things. And man, has this labour given me fruits. The whole fantasy fair thing was a project for me, to see what something like that was like, and to understand why some of my friends liked it so much. Now I must say, the fair itself probably wasn’t 100% my thing, but it has given me quidditch, and quidditch has given me so much more. For one, it gave me the opportunity to meet people outside of school, of different ages, with different stories. This has been great so far and I know it will be great in the future.

#3 perseverance

Okay, not gonna lie, I did not exactly stick to this resolution throughout the year, but I made it into june, which I think is pretty impressive. What am I talking about? Writing in a diary. I think this is a great gentle reminder to pushing on, and perseverance in general, and I have the intention to start again this january. You never know how far I will come next year!

Over the course of the year there have been multiple things I started but stopped, but still I feel like I have grown in perseverance. I’m still figuring out a balance, a key to push through no matter what barriers there are between me and my goals, but I am certain that I’m getting there. I have always seen my mind as a huge ball of knotted ropes and ideas spinning and twisting and just generally making no sense, but I feel like I am getting the hang of untangling all of it. A clear mind is like a clean slate, right?

Generally, I am just really proud of how much I have grown this year, and even though some days may be better than others, I have faith that I can make 2015 equally wonderful or perhaps, with a little work, even better.

I hope you can be proud of your 2014 self too.

Love, Ruby