This blog photo made lovingly with PicMonkey

Life is an ocean of dips and swells. And 2013 was no different.

This time last year, I was compiling blog posts about what got me through 2012, and the four words that best described it: struggle, accomplishment, failure, and love. Four words that describe 2013? Rest, love, discovery, and luck.

2013 was restful because it was a year of complete and utter R&R. The first part was spent waiting to see if I got into business school, and the last part was spent trying to figure out what to do after being rejected from business school. I realized sometime around August that I needed to get back into writing again, even with all of my hopeful entrepreneurial pursuits hanging loosely from my back pocket, but mostly I feel like I just coasted through this year, compared to last year with all of my firmly planted business school and running goals.

2013 was all about love because it’s everywhere, all the time, and it was my silent companion this year. I realized that love was my resistance to everything negative, everything that made me anxious or upset, and everything hard. Loving my body made pain go away. Loving complete strangers, and their successes, made envy and jealousy disappear. Love was the answer to every problem I had, and it brought me patience, understanding, and sleep. I sincerely hope my gravestone says “I loved it all”. Because I really did.

 2013 was a year of discovery because I discovered a lot this year through traveling across the globe, meeting my boyfriend’s family, building connections with and featuring other bloggers, and through complete strangers. I discovered how people in other parts of the world live. I discovered that my boyfriend’s family was just as loving and accepting as mine. I discovered that there are so many bloggers out there who struggle with the same problems I do, and who also use writing as their anti-histamine. I discovered once again, that I am small and inconsequential, and that there is no room for any other type of thinking.

2013 was a year of luck, because let’s be real here, luck was on my side in that car accident, and luck has been on my side ever since. My car is going to be okay. My bones are in tact. My eyes are on straight. It’s been over a week since the crash and I’m feeling eons better. I guess luck was mostly a factor towards the end of the year, but I still consider it a huge part of 2013, since I’m lucky to be alive.

Ultimately I can say that what got me through 2013 was love, writing and wine. Aside from the notable things that happened (pictured above), a few other cool things that happened were:

• Getting my very first mac book
• My brother graduating from middle school
• Successfully getting a new blog design done
• Successfully hiring a developer to build a website
• Holding my first giveaway on the blog
• The Passion Series
• Getting my writing published to other blogs

To wrap everything up, since I know it’s New Years Eve and you’re strappin on those party boots and adjusting those party caps, I want to say thank you so much for following my blog in 2013. Once again, this blog has been my passion and my joy, and it’s grown so much since last year with all of the guest posts, the new design, and recently added giveaways. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for subscribing. And thank you above all, for reading. It feels like I gotz a million friendz.

I have no new years resolutions, as usual, because every day I wake up with a resolve to be a better me than I was yesterday. To love more, to give more, to always be kind. To be financially responsible. To understand and listen to the voices around me. To say less. To think before saying. To love myself. To understand that glittering empires take time to build. To not let anyone dictate how I will feel, act, be, or think. To be vulnerable. To not be ashamed for being upset, scared, sad, mad, glad, empty or confused. To drink up, me hearties, and to always, always be merry.

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas, and I wish you nothing but good moves, thoughts, and feelings in 2014. Cheers!

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Monique Muro

Monique is an exceedingly happy human from LA. She runs the blog A Novel Quest, and writes. A lot.

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