This practice of gifting hopes to myself each June 30th has become a tradition of mine. I did it for my 24th and 25th.
This was an enormously impactful year – I wrote a lovely little section about this but it got lost in bad wifi, apparently, and I don’t have the patience to redo it! – and I’m so excited to see what comes next.

- Deep trust in those beautiful moments when people say that they love me or admire me.
- Space to be wildly imperfect as I start my first full-time job as an adult.
- Time to clean and do other maintenance tasks each week so that those don’t pile up and add unnecessary stress to my life.
- Openness to the lessons I will receive by living simply in a very small space for a year.
- Continued willingness to say no, even to things that I would desperately like to attend and know that I would enjoy, so that I can be stable and as healthy as possible in the long-run.
- Road trips at least once a month to places that inspire me, where I can go hiking and be immersed in ridiculous beauty.
- An increasing habit of mine to spend significantly less time on social media than I used to.
- Permission to hold personal details closer to the vest to be shared only with those closest to me or during in-person conversations when it is fit.
- Exploration of how, why, and with what content I want to continue to run this blog and my Tumblr, especially as my body continues to surprise me with the things it can do (even though I still inhabit a liminal space between severely disabled and perfectly healthy – whatever those terms mean).
- Time dedicated to finding spiritual, social, emotional, and vocational homes in Minnesota, even though I may only be there for a year.
- Motivation and space in my schedule to get myself to the gym and do other things that are part of my self-care even more consistently.
- Sometimes, silence when I think I need noise and noise when I think I need silence.
- Space – both temporal and literal – to write my book, as well as a dedicated place where I write.
- Continual challenges that push me to the limits of what I think I can do, as well as the grace to tap out when I hit my limits and the compassion to respond to myself with a necessary balm.
- Love for myself, no matter the day.
- An even deeper sense of humor that gives me the ability to laugh at myself and the world.
- Openness to the many ways in which I’ll respond to the vicarious trauma of my job.
- Discernment about which people make up parts of the very core of my daily, weekly, or monthly life.
- The kind of self-respect and dedication that will guide me to buy the kinds of food that will make me feel well, even when my budget is tight.
- Deeper faith in what God can do with my prayers.
- Moments to step outside of whatever I’m doing or thinking about just to go watch a sunset.
- Continued fire in my soul to believe that I can do something positive to change the world at large.
- Patience to live in the questions and not rush to answers.
- Space to write cards.
- Few to no specific expectations for any day.
- Total awe that, even when I’m exhausted or even feeling burned out, I get to work at the hospital that gave me my life back. And that – and what’s already happened there – is nothing but a gift and a miracle.

Oh I love this what a lovely and inspiring tradition I might steal this idea xx
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