Now this isn’t a feeling I’m comfortable with. I am not a victim of circumstance. I created a magical life which I (in general) love from a place of nothing. I take pride in the fact that my life is how I’ve decided to make it. So I was left wondering what I am supposed to be learning from the past year. I mean, for the love of God, people don’t have years like that for nothing…right?

But as I look back, I realize I also let the year affect me in ways I shouldn’t have. I practically stopped writing. I almost entirely stopped shooting pictures. I fell out of touch with some people who are very important to me. I stopped trying to grow my business, and just maintained. I can’t come up with a single new challenge I gave myself and took on. For the love of God, I didn’t even leave the country once last year. And none of that is “me”.

So, my 2011 is going to be about a year of rebuilding. Of putting my life back together in a new, better form than it has ever been. Because THAT, my friends, is what I do and who I am. I figure out solutions. I live with a smile on my face, embracing challenges and asking life “what else ya got for me?” That is the person I see in the mirror, not a person who just drifts through, taking what is handed. I self-identify as a risk taker, challenge seeker, problem solver, and joyful, joyful person. New home, new relationship, new ways of doing business. By the end of 2011, I expect my life will look nearly unrecognizable from where it is now.

She moved into my house for about 9 months, while she was shifted around in the public defense “system” of LA  (seriously, the way public defenders are trained is crazy. They have to go through multiple court houses, so there’s no way they can actually settle until they get through a huge number of systemic upheavals) The Public Defender was living with me while I started my business, and has seen it grow from a spark in my eye (before she had even passed the BAR), to Tuesday night meetings around the dining room table, to offices and an office Christmas party (in her words: “holy crap, that’s stuff my mom has to worry about!”), to me being across the country working when she was proposed to. 

The Public Defender is a lot of things I aspire to be. She knows her convictions, and allows those to be her guide in life. She has a contruct of values and lives her life according to them…both personally and professionally. 

 Now, I’m not saying that I agree with her opinions and convictions on things. In fact, some of the best times we have are over a bottle of cab, disagreeing. But, her singular purpose to live life behind the beliefs she has committed to is inspiring. 

and makes me change a little every day.