This year is probably the first New Year's in my life that I haven't sat down with a notebook and actually wrote down a concrete list of resolutions. Lists are sort of my thing, so this was really out of the ordinary. There are people who write resolutions, and there are people that think it's all nonsense. I'm one of the former, but for some reason I just didn't feel the need to write a physical list down this year. The past few months of 2016 have been a period of incredible personal growth for me. I read a quote recently that read: "There are years that ask questions and years that answer." - Zora Neale Hurston. The year 2016 for me was definitely a breaking point of about two to three "question" years, and towards the end of it I began to notice when the energy began to shift into an "answering" time period. While that might all sound like hippie-shop-at Whole-Foods nonsense, stick with me, here.

Over the course of the past few years I've experienced a lot of heartache, failure and change. A pretty large percentage of that time was spent asking why to whatever deity would hear me yell to it at 2 am, and just trying to figure out how to cope with the amount of anxiety I was experiencing. I can't say that I knew at the time that it was a question year of sorts, I just knew everything felt uncertain, unstable, and scary. But I think that's the point. When we are in the middle of feeling anxious and scared we sometimes don't realize that there is hope: a new "year" ahead of us. It seems like our now is all that will be, and it genuinely is all that we know sometimes because it's been that way for such a long period of time. If I'm being genuine, I felt down and anxious during most of 2016. I was starting to learn more and more about where I was supposed to be, but there were times my heart just didn't feel that it was in the right place or the right time.

In early April of 2016, I experienced a breakup that I should have expected, but was too naive to believe in. I had found the person who made my heart feel at home, and after months of hard work I was able to tear down the walls of protection I had cased myself in after years of being lied to and abandoned by other people. I found the one I thought my soul had met in another life, probably at a coffee shop talking about scientific theories and politics somewhere. He loved my mind before he loved my body, and that was a first. I thought I had found my knight in shining armor, here to save me from all that I knew what love meant. But in reality, he couldn't be my knight because he still was learning how to save himself. Either that, or I just wasn't good enough, but that's something I'm still working through.

I was left here. I didn't think that would ever happen. I thought the dreams we made with each other were for each other, but they ended up being his own dreams, and I've learned to be okay with that. He wanted to run far away from this state and attempt to find whatever it is he was meant to be and escape whatever demons I couldn't destroy for him. I tried. Maybe he was in a question year, too.

When you're abruptly left behind by someone and a love you put your faith in is revealed to be defined differently by your own lover, you feel as if you're back at square one. At least, I did. Where do I go from here? What is wrong with me? I could fill up pages upon pages of the questions I asked myself and eventually needed therapy to stop asking during that time. Everything was wrong, and everything was a question. Some questions I didn't really need to be asking, and other answers I really deserved but never received. That's okay, now.

There was also school. My last semester. I did it all on my own, and whenever it first began my heart used to ache at the fact my last semester was such a lonely one. This last semester was filled with the most hours I have ever taken, and with the highest stakes set on them. Pass or don't graduate. And I did it. I did it without a shoulder to cry on or a partner to stay up with on late nights writing notes. Besides an ending to a relationship and the stress of school, I also dealt with events mentally that could have left me defeated on their own.

Peace didn't just hit me out of nowhere, but eventually it came. When peace finally arrived it felt like it had just abruptly came out of nowhere, but in reality I would be selling myself so short if that were to be the case. Peace came from months of crying in the shower and screaming at God (or what felt like the lack thereof at times). Peace came from running seven miles because you couldn't sleep and you couldn't tell if tears were falling from your face on mile four, or if that was just sweat. I remember on a particular run I audibly told myself, you may hurt so badly right now, and it's only going to get harder, but you're going to be so much stronger when this is said and done. You've just got to keep pushing until that point.

Peace came from months of having to force myself to eat even though the anxiety and depression made my body think it didn't need or want fuel. When I finally did want to eat again, my mind would tell me that if I could just keep it up maybe I'd be pretty enough again and all my problems would go away. My mind had to overcome that, too. It came from nights of no sleep and months of crying myself to sleep when the sleep finally came. Nobody was there to tell me to breathe when the thoughts in my mind yelled out louder than the voices speaking to me outside of it. Nobody was there to hold my hand and count to ten when I thought the thoughts would consume me before I could end them. I went from the past four years of having a partner of some sort to having myself. And the first few months were hell, and I have the journals so filled with emotion that I can't quite look at them yet to prove it. They were some of the most mentally exhausting months I've experienced.

Then something beautiful happened. I grew. I changed. I learned to become my own best friend. My own encourager. I ate lunch with myself and I went on walks with myself. I called my mom to tell her about my day instead of needing him to tell that to. I began to breathe on my own without a companion telling me to do so. I began to have fewer panic attacks, and the few that came I could manage alone, and soon enough the urges to find him and have him make it all okay during those times became less and less.

Then the positivity started seeping into every aspect of my life. I took on the last few months of the semester with a determined spirit, and I finally got my bachelor's degree. I finished another half-marathon despite dealing with depression and anxiety the entire time I attempted to train. I had a new fire and strength that I've never had in my life, because it was a strength I created within. My friendships became more genuine because I felt worthy of true friends. The manipulators that used to wreck havoc on my emotions no longer had control over me because I knew I could handle anything, and was worth more than what they could give me. Nobody could steal from me the love I created for myself. Nobody could destroy the strength I created by leaving, because I created it while I was alone. I began to replace all the love I was craving with love I created for myself. And I felt peace.

I'm not sure exactly all of the places that created it, but it was there. At times, I doubt myself and I think that I wouldn't even be where I am if he hadn't have left me, but then I realize that every choice to grow was my own. I had been left before, and instead of choosing to create my own self-love and strength I found it in others. Finding love in others can be genuine, but it's easy. You didn't have to work for it. It's easy to be taken away. This time I didn't take the easy way out. It also wasn't just a relationship ending that sparked my drive. It was the goal of graduating, the goal of being self-sufficient and in control of my own happiness.

So, I say all of that to say, I didn't write my resolutions this year, because I am at a place in my life where I'm almost living my resolutions instead of proclaiming them. I feel that I am in a place emotionally where I have already received some of my answers, and I know 2017 will bring me even more. I want for 2017 to love myself enough to know my worth, and I've already begun that journey. I'm sure that I will scribble some fine tuned notes into my journal eventually, but right now I feel as if I'm already living and breathing what I want my 2017 to be. Anything that doesn't make me feel respected and loved doesn't have a place in my 2017. Whether that be myself being inconsistent with things that make me happy such as running or self-care, or doubting myself. It may be people without my best interests at heart. I know that those things do not fall into a plan for loving myself, and that's why I refuse to let any of those things be in my 2017. I suppose instead of resolutions I've adopted simple mantras of sorts. Love yourself. Love yourself, and it all falls into place. 2016 was filled with questions and ended with me finding my own answers. 2017 has new questions all on its own such as where do I move, what jobs do I apply for, etc. But I have the confidence that those answers will come as the answers I already have have came. 2017 is a year of answers for me, and I hope you find yours as well.