Peace is important. I believe that many people spend their lives chasing peace. You want to find things that bring you peace, fulfillment, or joy.

My life has already been in upheaval for 2025. I want to keep things under wraps for the moment. Maybe at some point I’ll talk about it and tell you the full story. But for now, I plan to keep things to myself and the people that already know the situations.

What I can tell you though is that I am at peace with what has occurred. It has provided me a lot of closure on some hard questions and topics. I tend to cycle through a world of emotions still, but I take things one day or even one moment at a time.

There are things I wish I could change about my life right now. But some of those things are entirely out of my control. I have spent too much time worrying about things that I’m not capable of changing. It only adds stress to my plate.

I recently redid my stove with the current stressors that I’m facing. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, check out this post (here). While a lot of things I felt stressed about were bigger things, many of them are things I can either work on slowly or things that won’t change for a while. A lot of my smaller stressors are nonexistent right now, or at least so small that I don’t even register them.

This peace is not an absence of stress. I want to make that perfectly clear. This is coming from accepting the path that I am on and the stress that accompanies my journey. I accept where I’ve been, where I am, and where I’m going.

As usual, I don’t speak for anyone but myself. I didn’t expect that 2025 would start out the way it has for me. I did not anticipate that I would be in this position. There’s a lot that I’m still looking forward to, but there’s also a good amount of peace that has overtaken my life recently. I have many things that I”m doing to reach for my goals, and I have a lot of goals I still want to reach. But I don’t feel as much urgency as I have in the past. I have really been working on recognizing the steps I take instead of just rushing to the end result.

Some people have a word of the year. It’s not something I necessarily try for, but as I set goals for myself for the year ahead, I think of who I want to be as a person. This year, I believe my word is “fulfillment.” I want to be fulfilled in all (or most) areas of my life. There are some areas I have already reached that level. There are others that I’m still working on. Regardless, in the past few weeks I’ve had an overwhelming sense of peace on me. I believe that I’m on this journey for a reason, and I know the outcome will be worth it.

I don’t really have a formula or a process for how I got here. I think it was just more acceptance of the way my life has gone recently. You can’t choose the circumstances you encounter in life, but you can choose how you respond to them. I have gotten better at reaching out when I need help, and the people that surround me have been amazing. I am so thankful. Part of this peace I am experiencing comes from them, but part of it also comes from accepting my position in life. I try to look at all experiences shaping me into someone better. I’m still looking ahead, but I’ve really learned to recognize what I’m going through here and now.

I feel discombobulated on a number of things in my life if I’m honest. I’m still struggling to write my blog and do some other things that have at one point come easily to me. This post has been in my drafts for a long time with not much written on it. I keep getting ideas that seem to fizzle out before I can exhaust them in a decent post. I want to do better, but I’m trying to be kinder to myself and recognize what exactly I am going through currently.

I tell you that to tell you that I’m not necessarily in a place where everything is perfect and I feel completely confident in every single action I take. I’m struggling in different ways than I have before. But I know that I’ve been through hard things before, and I know I will make it through again. And that settles me. That brings me peace. These experiences are new. But I’ve come through everything that I have handled before, and I know I can do it again.

Peace does not mean that I settle into my life. I am still working to change certain things. I am continuously trying to improve. I have goals, dreams, and hopes to reach. Those still matter to me. I’m working on what I can change, and trying to accept what I can’t. It’s not been a short road, and I’m not sure if I want anyone to walk along this same path I’m on. So I’m trying to help by giving the knowledge I have learned without giving the lesson I had to go through to get here. That’s what a good teacher does.