Another year

Facebook made me a "Year in Review" video and I wasn't too sure it really made sense to me. Since I try to post only the positive things that are happening on Facebook, it didn't quite reflect how I viewed my 2017. It was a year of learning and growing, both personally and professionally, but was also just tough. I, for one, was incredibly happy to say "au revoir et au dieu" to 2017.

I'm not going to lie. 2017 was difficult and I don't really want to have another year like it.

The positives: All I can really say is that 2017 was a tremendous year of growth and reflection for me. I learned a ton about how much I can take and how important self-care really is. I also learned that I have one of the greatest support systems and groups of friends that I could ever imagine. The all stood with me and at least let me know that I was going to get through my lows of the year. 2017 was the year when I was constantly breaking and having to pick up the pieces over and over and over again, though I was enveloped by quite a few who took me under their arms.

January:

The year started off pretty well. I had received news that I was officially done with all of my treatments at Children's Hospital. I spent a good amount of time at home for the holidays. I started reporting on a ton of rodeo events in Wright and met some of the most caring, kind-hearted people that I could have ever imagined. It was cold, however. I was having major issues convincing myself that it was OK to take a break from my reporter life and concentrate on myself. I was taking an 80-mile round-trip drive to and from Wright while working as a reporter for two newspapers: a crime reporter and features writer for one and a general reporter and photographer for the other.

February:

The second month of the year still started off very, very cold. I was running all over the place trying to cover news for an entire town and keep my head on straight for crime reporting. I survived the coldest January Gillette has seen in 20 years and I was single-handedly covering an entire town. My faith in myself took a dive at this point. I was exhausted and tired, and drove between Gillette and Wright in several blizzards, thinking I was going to be spending the night in my car (good thing I had a sleeping bag in the back).

March:

The weather was getting warmer, at least. Though, whenever it would get warm and then the temperature took a dip, we had a good ol' fashioned standoff where someone was holed up somewhere threatening to kill themselves or others. Somehow, law enforcement made it out all right. March was also the month I gave notice at my job. It was a hard decision, but it was just not the position for me. I gave my editor three weeks and my last day would be at the end of April (April 21, to be exact).

April:

April seemed to go OK. It was the month of saying some very heartfelt goodbyes to the people I had reported on and talked to on a regular basis. I was really going to miss the people of Wright – they had always been incredibly helpful connecting me with the people I needed to talk to for just about all of my stories. My last day of work was April 21. It was sad, but I knew it was the right decision. The end of April included a run for one of our Sky High Hope Camp campers who was battling brain cancer, and she was battling hard. We put together a book for her and the family. At this point, I was still living in Gillette and would be there until May. Side note: my last article was about poop...

May:

I moved back home on May 12. In fact, I moved back over graduation weekend, and that's literally all I could think of as we passed Fort Collins. Wow, what a difference a year made. Just a year before, I had accepted the job and now I felt like I had thrown myself back to square one. I was at home for a weekend and then came up to Fort Collins. The month ended with my mother having back surgery and that camper passing away. That was when my heart crumbled. Survivor's guilt set in and I really hit this downward spiral of depression. I didn't really know what I was feeling, and I just thought it was wrong of me to feel the way I was. That only made it harder... much, much harder.

June:

Camp basically started this month; camp feels more like home to me than anywhere else in the world. But the end of the week included a total meltdown. They don't happen often, but I was pretty down. We had just lost our camper two weeks before and I wasn't feeling too confident about what I wanted to do. I had applied to just about everything I could find since February and was getting incredibly discouraged. Luckily, I had a quite a few people to fall back on and help me through.

July:

I don't really remember a ton about this month. It was an odd one. Full of adventures with friends and complete panic about finding a job, July was just a month in summer. I was trying to make the most of my situation. I had a ton of interviews, which basically took me the corridor of I-25 about every week. Lots of driving and not a whole lot of downtime. By the end of July, after having no luck finding a job, I decided I would head to Wyoming for the solar eclipse. I ordered a fancy filter and started charting my course. Photography is always what I fall back on. It's simple and when you follow the rules, you get great results. Every time. Between June and July was also the month where I seemed to close myself off again because the words, "have you found a job yet?" kept burning through me and making me feel like an absolute failure. I'm fairly vocal on social media. If I had found a job, you would probably know by that first. Leave me alone. I know you mean well when you ask college grads and young people this questions, but it is anything but helpful for us. We're trying. OK? July also included a trip to Crazy Woman Canyon in Northern Wyoming

August:

Finally. I had received a job offer, and I received it two days before my birthday. After some talking into from a good friend, I decided to take it and I now consider it my best decision of the year. Aug. 21 was the eclipse and since I had a job, I could finally relax a bit. I took some stellar photos of the eclipse and headed back to FoCo to prepare for the new job, which I would start at the beginning of September. Time to start looking for apartments.

September-October:

I had landed a great job and started to settle in. Definitely started not having somewhere to live, but I got help with that. I signed a lease at the end of the month and started to move into my new apartment. I finally got my cat back (she was living at home). We all dressed up for Halloween at work and it was a great couple of months.

November:

November brought another bout of survivor's guilt. A counselor from camp, who had been diagnosed with Lymphoma several years ago had lost her battle with it. It was requested that several of us sing/sign to "The River" in ASL at her funeral. It had to be one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. The rest of November was just like that, except this time, I knew that I just had to convince myself that it was OK to feel what I was feeling and that it was just going to take time to get over it. I tried to hide it at work, but my boss saw right through it. Luckily, I had some awesome people supporting me at work and checking in on me periodically. I was also asked to me the maid of honor at my the wedding of my best friend in college. So honored!

December:

I got sick at the beginning of December (you know stuff really gets around the office when we all refer to it as the "Madwire Plague"). I didn't get a ton done in December because of this, but the end of the month meant going home to spend time with family. I also learned just how awesome the people I work with are when I learned off all the fundraising and giving Madwire does at all points in the year, but some things happened and the company stepped up. It was amazing. I stayed home on New Year's Eve because it was freezing outside.

I'm looking forward to a far better year in 2018. Sometimes hard years are necessary and the journey mattered, but I don't want to do it again. Thanks to all of you who helped me through. I don't know if I ever explicitly said it enough, but I am so grateful for those willing to help me along the journey.