Turning 31

It's crazy to think I've already lived through the first year of my 30s! It was an eventful year, too - trying to get pregnant, and then *being* pregnant. One of my goals this year was to practice resilience (despite whatever challenges I might face) regarding my dream of becoming a mother, and to remain hopeful and make decisions based on those hopes (and not my fears or anxieties) - and I'm happy to say both that I achieved that goal, and that it turned out to be easier than I worried it might be. Thankfully, I faced most of my challenges when I was 29, and the universe gave me a bit of a break when I was 30. :)

I made non-pregnancy goals for myself as well, to try to ensure that I accomplished things I could be proud of, even if getting pregnant didn't pan out. I submitted my artwork to local exhibitions and created lots of new art (more on all that in a coming post). I read 60 books and watched 60 movies, TV series, or theater productions (more on all that in another coming post, too). I also continued to prioritize my mental health, answering "positive thinking" questions every day to remind myself what I'm looking forward to, what I have to be thankful for, and what matters to me most.

Naturally, I've made some goals for this coming year too - the year I'm 31. Some of the goals are much less (reading 20 books instead of 60, for instance), to try to account for all my time that will be taken up by taking care of my new baby and figuring out my transition to motherhood. Others represent a temporary shift in priorities from one of my passions to the other. This past year I really prioritized working on artwork, so that I would have plenty of recent drawings and watercolors to market, sell, make notecards of, and submit to local exhibitions, even if I didn't have time to create much more in 2020. Next year, my goal is to focus more on my writing instead, returning to various novels I've been writing on and off for the past several years. (I'm hoping it might be easier to sneak in pockets of writing or editing here and there between feedings and diaper changes and playing with my new baby, than it might be to settle down with some paints or colored pencils to produce even a small sized piece of artwork.)

I'm so excited to turn 31 - with a new baby due basically any day now, and one of my lifelong dreams therefore on the cusp of coming true, I just know 31 is going to be my best year yet. :)