What are your biggest accomplishments of the year? As I've seen friends' responses pop up all over social media, I've been trying to think of my own, flipping back through my mental Rolodex of 2019. Here's what I've come up with - & I'd love to hear your answers, too!
1. Rode my 100th spinning class
This milestone was originally set to happen in January, but right after the first of the year, I took a nasty fall on black ice & destroyed my right knee. That pushed this goal back a few months... which made it that much sweeter when, in mid-March, I hit 100 rides at Harness Cycle! Four friends came out to ride with me, & the instructor made a playlist of all my faves.
2. Interviewed some really cool people
I started doing a lot more freelance writing for Cleveland Magazine, plus some for Ohio Magazine, WISH Cleveland, & Edible Cleveland. My interviews so far have included a sitting senator, a James Beard Award-winning chef, a bestselling author, a Cavs player, & the owners of one of the top-rated grocery stores in the country. It's been a lot of fun!
3. Won an award for my writing
In June, I learned that I'd won third place in the Cleveland Press Club's Excellence in Journalism Awards' "Single Essay" category for my summer 2018 piece about my struggle with thoughts of suicide. Was I initially bummed to be third? Yes. And then I realized that hey, this is kind of amazing, & I can't believe I was a finalist or even a nominee, much less a winner.
4. Wrote an essay for an anthology
In fall of 2020, my essay about my childhood experience with debilitating idiopathic scoliosis will appear in the much-anticipated anthology Body Talk, by Algonquin Young Readers, alongside essays from Tyra Banks, Aly Raisman, and others. I wrote about it a little but really can't fully express just how excited I am about it.
5. Got a promotion
I don't talk much about my full-time job here on the blog, but I did briefly mention this achievement in a blog post all about being not OK. At that time, I said I hadn't had a moment to settle into the new role - but a month & a half later, I'm feeling like I'm on much more solid ground, & I' really proud of myself for moving into this role. (Here's more about the job I left behind, btw.)
It occurs to me that all of these answers are, like, extremely tangible - there's nothing on here like "Thrive in our second year of marriage" or "Be a good friend." I don't want to leave the impression that those things don't matter to me, because they matter more than anything. But that's why they're not on here. They're ongoing efforts, to continue to do & achieve & redo, in perpetuity.
So what about you? What are your proudest achievements of 2019?
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