24

Twenty-four has been one of my favorite numbers my whole life. I like the evenness of it, the way it multiplies and divides so tidily into so many other nice and tidy whole numbers. It's 2 and 6 and 8 and 4 and 3 and 12, and it's the day of the month I was born. In 2023, I decided 2024 would be the best year yet, and I started creating a world for myself where that could come true. When I got engaged on January 1st, it felt like the perfect beginning to the perfect year, and the first couple of months held a lot of promise. 

Then the promises shattered and one thing after another after another threw my life into chaos and my heart into pieces. I never imagined how difficult this year would be in so many different ways. Now, we are at the end of my favorite number year, and I realize

I was right.

This has been the very best year of my life so far.

I have grown this year more than any other five years combined. I have proven to myself that all the work I have done has not been for naught. I have watched my children soar and falter and thrive and struggle and have not owned their emotions as my own but have also been there for them as much as I can be. I have transformed my life from codependent toxicity to better boundaries and independence in my own identity. I watch my dreams come true in unexpected ways but come true nonetheless.

The heartbreak and grief and growing pains have birthed something more bright and beautiful than I ever expected. That peace and joy and wholeness I felt in Waipio Valley has continued, and now I wake each morning with a feeling of complete and utter joy. I open my eyes with gratitude for what I see around me, what I see in front of me, what I see behind me--and most powerfully, what I see inside of me.

Abundance.

This is what I live right now. I live abundance in the love I have for myself and the love I am readily able to give to others. I live in an abundance of gratitude. I live in an abundance of comfort. I live in an abundance of satisfaction. I work on the beach and feel the wind and the water. I see the the turtles and the whales and the landscape and the beauty in all the things around me. I absorb this life that the majority of people in the world never get to experience and a handful only experience temporarily. Now, I live in it every day all day as much as I want. 

All of my worlds and my separate pieces have joined into one great whole. I no longer have to wait until this thing or that thing to feel this way or that way. It's here every day all the time. 

And it's here every day all the time because of Him. I thank my Heavenly Father for this abundance and pray that I can share it with any and all who want it, too. There is too much to hold and keep to myself. My abundance is overflowing and I love, love, love to share it. I love to share it with the new friends I make on my flights, with the people I visit with on the beach, with the friends I make on the island, with my children, my family, my friends. I love to feel this and I love to share it and I am so very blessed to have so much to share.

On my phone, a few months ago, I added a screen saver to remind me: Flow, Peace, Joy.

I am remembering.

And I have decided, 2025 will be my best year yet.



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