New Year, New Me?

Hello, 2017! I don't know how you're here, but I guess I'm glad you are. I feel as if my life has just flown by these past few years. Heck, it feels like just yesterday I was graduating high school and I "should" be graduating college in May - it'll be December for me, but still. Adulting is coming at me, way too quickly.

If you read my previous post, or follow me on any social media, you know 2016 didn't exactly end in the best way. Death and sadness surrounded my life - I lost my best friend in a tragic car accident. I think I've gone through just about all the "steps" of grieving. Although, sometimes I feel like I take one step forward towards accepting and two steps back in the direction of denial. One thing I've learned during these last (almost) two months, is that it's okay to hurt and be sad. I've always had a difficult time with feelings [because ew, who wants to express how they feel rather than just keeping it all bottled up? That's my speciality ;) ]. My new favorite way of expressing how I feel is writing. After all, that is why you're here! With that being said, I've decided to focus my writing on not only my feelings/expressions, but how great God's love is. This is all apart of my "New Year, New Me" resolution for 2017.

My beautiful sister, Danika, challenged me to pick one word to focus on for all of 2017. There's like 8 bagillion words in this world so how in the heck was I supposed to pick just one?! Prayer of course. After many conversations with the big man upstairs and my family, I've chosen the word intentional. According to the good ole Google, intentional means "done on purpose, deliberate." So deliberately eating those double chocolate chip brownies? Got it ;) but on the reals...

I'm going to intentionally tell my family, boyfriend, friends, loved ones, strangers, everyone, how much not only I love, care and appreciate them, but how much God does too.

I'm going to intentionally take myself to counseling to learn how to grieve and express my feelings the right way. There's so much unhappy stigma around counseling and I truly don't understand why. My nana has always said, "everyone needs a therapist" so I'm taking her advice to the extreme this time ;)

I'm going to intentionally enjoy the last twelve months of my school career because learning is cool (even when it's insanely hard). Also because after this year I'm going to have to go to work everyday...ugh.

I'm going to intentionally read my bible (app), go to church on Sundays & read my daily devotional. I need it because I need a constant reminder to trust in His path. I know He's doing great things in and for me.

I'm going to intentionally make time for social activities. I've begun to feel myself slowly drifting into a depression-like state-of-mind and that's a no go for me. A few weeks ago I had an actual panic attack at Walmart while shopping with my brother. He walked to the other side of the store to get something and I freaked. Started hyperventilating, forgot what I was doing/where things were in the store, just felt alone and scared. My current goal is to do one social activity outside of my home, in public, every other week. Before losing Morgan, this totally wouldn't have been a big deal for me, but sometimes life becomes challenging. Even with things we used to be masters at.

I'm going to intentionally watch what I eat/drink. I know, such a basic "resolution" but my body is a temple and I need to treat it that way.

I'm going to intentionally continue being the strong person (I think) I am. I've always been good at rolling with the punches of life - I've needed assistance the past few months, but I'm going to get back on my game this year.

I'm going to intentionally enjoy 2017. So much of me wants to wallow in the loss of Morg and just stay there forever, but I know she would hate me if I did that.

Mentally, physically and emotionally, I'm exhausted, but I'm ready for the challenging journey ahead. I wrote this blog to hold myself accountable and to have others do the same for me. Will there be days I slip up? Absolutely - but by trusting in God's plan, word and way of life, I'll find my way back. I encourage all 800 people (holy cow, that's insane! Thanks for the love and support! ♥) that read my blog to pick one word to focus on for the entire year. I would love to know what it is! Check out myoneword.org if you need assistance in picking a word :)


Much love ya'll. Xoxo

"The Joy of the Lord is my strength." - Nehemiah 8:10 ✝

No Thanks, November

12:01AM. 1 minute after midnight on December 1, 2016 and I’m already praying this month is better than November. After reflecting on this school year and the year 2016 in general, I’ve come to the conclusion that November was the most challenging month I had all year (and maybe even past years). With 10 other months in competition, I’m still questioning how I made it out of this month alive if I ranked it as the worst. So what left me feeling not thankful during the month you're supposed to be the most thankful?
Fired

I first fell in love with the art of color guard my freshman year of high school and spun until I graduated in 2013. May of my senior year I began a fantastic journey instructing my first color guard at Brownsburg High School. On November 8, while I was sitting at dinner - with the world's greatest fam♥ - I got a text explaining that I would no longer have a position with the Brownsburg Color Guard program. This happened because the new band director decided a "staff change" was necessary to make the kids successful (hi, that's hurtful). Over the past almost 4 years, I have put my heart and soul into that program. In my first two years there I grew the program, requiring two high school winter guards and one middle school winter guard. I reserved every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday for rehearsals and competitions for the last four years - I don't even want to do the math to figure out how much time that is. I had never gotten fired before, but that wasn't even my worry. I was worried sick about my students - I cried non-stop for about 3 hours. This left me feeling empty inside because those were my babies and the person taking over didn't (and still doesn't) know them the way I do. My phone was blowing up with messages and calls for about two days after. Now I only get a couple messages a week. The kids miss me, and I tremendously miss the kids, but I couldn't change it. I really did think my whole world was crashing down around me when I realized I would never go back to the high school for a rehearsal.

Rejection

College, college, college. Internship, internship, internship. Career, career, career. This is all I've heard the last four years. August 2016 I began my senior year of college at the Kelley School of Business Indianapolis at IUPUI. Right now, I'm set to graduate December 2017 with 3 majors: Marketing, Supply Chain Management & Human Resource Management. Throughout this semester I've applied for approximately 20 internships. Side note: I have a super great internship at Vertellus right now, just need something different for next summer. I had a few interviews here and there, feeling extra lucky to get at least one offer...nope. Instead, I received six rejection letters in one day. My self-esteem and hopefulness for the future: at an all time low. I cried, screamed and questioned why I wasn't good enough but ultimately, I couldn't change it. God will provide.

Sick

I'm not just talking a little runny nose and sinus infection (although those do suck), I had viral bronchitis...for the entire month of November. I had about 5 people in my everyday life at work/school that had pneumonia so I guess I should've known something bad was coming. When I went to the doctor she prescribed me [f o u r] new medicines. One for the atrocious cough - couldn't drive on this one (how inconvenient is that?!?), another one for the cough - I could drive with this one, an inhaler for my cough (ew, I don't know how people with asthma do it. Kudos to you!) and one for the fever/every other symptom. I don't take any medicine everyday, I'm not allergic to anything, I'm a pretty healthy girl. This bronchitis came at the worst possible time though, school final projects were in full swing. I ended up missing my second capstone presentation (because my professor refused to allow me to come to class in protection of his own health). My immune system failed me, but I couldn't change it.

Death

First, let me introduce you to the most beautiful girl ever: Morgan Taylor Holt, my best friend for almost 15 years. She is the epitome of everything beautiful and great. Blonde hair, brown eyes, perfect teeth (no braces - lucky girl!), skinny minnie, smart - she was going to ISU studying biology and pre-vet, flawless in every way and so so SO loved. Morg came into my life when her + her fam moved in two houses down from my childhood home. Little did I know, we'd be inseparable for [y e a r s] to come. Her favorite flowers are sunflowers (totally the reason my blog is called Sunflowers + Shailyn - we did everything together, so this is nothing different! She's always with me!). Morg and I loved letting people know we were best friends because we were so proud of it. At the beginning of our friendship we learned we were one day, one month and one year apart. Every picture we posted, comment we left or status written contained our ever so famous "1|1|1 ♥" tacked onto the end of our loving words to one another. On November 20, I got the worst phone call(s) of my life...but I actually didn't answer either one. My sister got woken up at 5AM, drove 40 minutes to my mom's, woke her up + told her then they came downstairs to tell me together at 6AM. I could've sworn this was an awful nightmare I was experiencing. Life wasn't supposed to be this way? I wasn't supposed to lose my best friend at the age of 21? What was going on? I'll go into further detail in one of my upcoming blog posts. I had so many feelings that moment/day/week, it deserves a whole post. I know I said I thought my world was crashing down around me when I lost my job, but oh my gosh, this...this was it. My world as I knew it, did coming crashing down around me, but I couldn't change it. My heart is still so, so sad/broken/lost/every other adjective you could think of to describe the sudden death of your best friend. 12 days down, forever to go.

Remaining

So, overall, this month sucked. And that's an understatement. But one thing keeps me remaining thankful: Christ. My oh my is He so fantastic! I know I questioned Him more this month than I probably ever have before (can you blame me?), but that doesn't mean I don't remain faithful. Logically I know He remains good and that's what keeps me going in the long run. I have many other people to be thankful for also: my crazy supportive and loving family, boyfriend, best friend Megan and all other friends. Thank you to them, to everyone that sent their love and condolences for the loss of my precious Morgan, to my students for telling me how much they miss and appreciate me, to my body for finally kicking this bronchitis' butt, to my mom for reminding me it only takes one company to say yes (even if there's a million "no" beforehand), thank you to everyone for being in my life. Here's to hoping for a decent December!

Remain thankful ya'll.
Much love. Xoxo

"The Joy of the Lord is my strength." - Nehemiah 8:10 ✝