It was the year 2008. My little body sat in the stiff, adjustable chair next to the family desktop computer. I opened a word document and dragged Google images onto the blank workspace. I wrote my heart out based on uncontextualized images. It was silly stories about bears, poorly executed poems about flowers or journal entries about my school day. Those words are gone, lost on some formidable hard drive, but the memory remains still.
As the preteen years came and went, I lost that little artist. She was buried under heaps of self-doubt and negativity. That doubt extended until I was 20 years old. It was unfortunate because 2021 was the most growing year of my life. I wasn’t there to experience it, to document it.
But I was still loved nonetheless.
At the beginning of 2022, I dedicated this to being the happiest year of my life. I didn’t know what that meant, but I knew I wanted to be happy. What better way to achieve that than a new year?
I have a habit of taking new years resolutions quite seriously. I check in with myself throughout the year and usually have a list of goals hung up on a door. This year’s resolutions were to be present, social, share my work and be heard.
For whatever reason, this year has blessed me tremendously. I think it was because I allowed myself to be myself. I allowed the people that love me to love me. I stopped putting up walls and realized the potential that I was told I had so much of as a little girl.
My husband told me that I was going to write amazing things this year. He said I would lift people up and achieve powerful things. Recently I had a friend tell me that I was beautiful, inside and out. Those words have created a newfound love and protection for myself.
I know I’m not perfect, but I work hard every day to reach my potential and lift others. I have a new kind of acceleration, just like that seven-year-old girl with all the support in the world. Now I have the eyes to see it. To believe it.
2022 is a good year.
Isabelle Justice 