Halfway through 2019.

Hey! It’s me!

Long time no talk!

I haven’t seen you since December 8th 2018.

How have you been?

This year has been amazing so far, and I haven’t blogged about any of it.

I turned 29.

Started a podcast with my sister.

Watched my athlete take 3rd at the state meet in the 110 meter hurdles.

Visited Disneyland and Harry Potter world with my family.

I would be lying if I said that I didn’t miss it, because I do, but I don’t miss how much pressure I put on myself to write blog posts and make them as perfect as I could.

I put a lot of pressure on myself with everything I do, and my blog is no exception.

It would lead to poorly written, or forced blog posts that I wasn’t proud of. I loved it when I first started blogging, but hated it towards the end.

It became a chore.

The one outlet that I had made for myself was becoming a chore.

It was also taking time away from the one goal that I had for myself.

The one thing that lit my soul on fire just at the thought of.

I wanted to write this book so bad.

I just kept telling myself that I didn’t have time, and honestly, I really didn’t have a lot of time.

Between being a mom, wife, daughter, coach, and full time employee there wasn’t much time.

I just made time.

You know that feeling?

When you want something so badly that you’ll do anything to get it?

That was me.

I knew that I had to write this book this year.

I knew that it would mean getting to bed a little later and waking up a little earlier.

That I would have to stay off of Netflix and write instead.

Which if you know me, is extremely difficult.

Quitting blogging helped. In fact, if I hadn’t stopped I honestly don’t think I could have done it.

It wasn’t a perfect process though.

It was hard.

There wasn’t a single day while writing my book that I didn’t worry.

I worried that no one besides my immediate family would read it.

I worried that it would be awful.

I worried that I couldn’t do it.

I wish I could tell you that something just clicked and reminded me of my goals.

Or that I had some life changing event that made me push through the negative thoughts.

But I didn’t.

I just kept going.

I listened to those negative thoughts, realized that my fears were real and fine to feel, and kept going anyways.

That’s the thing about fears, others peoples opinions, and negative thoughts.

They don’t go away.

Maybe some of them do eventually, or a large majority of them if you’re lucky, but they’re always there.

Don’t let anyone fool you, there’s no magic cure for it.

You just have to keep going.

I realized recently that fears aren’t always bad.

Worries and negative thoughts aren’t the end all.

They don’t mean that you’re broken.

They’re there to challenge you.

To remind you to keep fighting.

I was reminded of that this May.

To fight, and to always keep fighting.

From a really good talk with a really good person.

And I kept that with me throughout the end of June, when I finally finished my book, rough draft and all.

I definitely grew throughout the entire process.

Going back and reading chapters I can see how my thoughts evolved and grew the more I wrote.

It was one of the scariest and most rewarding things that I have ever done.

Going towards the directions of my dreams, regardless of the fears that surrounded the path to it.

I turn 30 this year.

Well not this exact year but my next birthday on February 8th 2020.

I’ll be 30.

I wanted to make this last year in my twenties a special one.

A way to reflect on the last ten years of my life.

Ten years that completely rocked my world.

Ten years that taught me every single lesson I could possibly think of.

With the help of my grandma and some inspiration from the very first blog post I ever wrote, I did just that.

Reflected on the last ten years.

I decided to write a book about the twenty lessons that I learned in my twenties , lessons that turned me into the person I am today.

Someone who broke a heart, found love, had cancer, dreamed big, and learned how to be a friend.

This book is my entire heart.

Literally.

It’s all in that binder that my sweet husband is currently going through editing.

It’s scary though.

He’s reading what I wrote.

He could hate it.

He could love it.

It’s officially out in the universe to someone.

I said back in December that I would share what it was about when it’s done so here it is.

This is normally where I would say something like “you may not care” or “if anyone even reads it” but it’s time I start accepting my accomplishments and taking pride in them.

I’ve written this book that I’m extremely proud of and it’s very special to me.

You’ll have your hands on it sometime in the fall, so get excited.

❤