IN REVIEW

2014 was a wild time. It was a dramatic year that brought a lot of pain and a lot of intense joy.

I chopped my hair.
I flew to Arizona to see a best friend get married and the sun set across the red rocks.

I saw snow for the first time. And I rolled in it and reveled in it and made a snow angel.

I turned 25. Will I ever not feel 22? I'm not sure. What is it to really absorb an age? To feel it in your bones? I've enjoyed my quarter-quell so far.

I surprised Jared with a trip to Norway, and we ate reindeer sausage and we saw the tallest mountains and took a train across a frozen wasteland that was so beautiful it hurt. And then we were rolling down hills and looking at tulips, and stuck outside the airport at horrible AM laughing and enjoying being in love in Scandinavia.

Then Jared and I took a huge breath and a leap of faith and decided to have a baby. I wrote some of my favorite essays of the year about the maddening rush of hormones and the slow heavy crush of nine months of waiting. 

I lost my whole heart in North Carolina. 

I lost an incredible man who I loved so very very much. I miss you all the time, Papa. And right on its heels we lost Cathy which still doesn't seem real. 

My year seems cinematic when I look back at it like this. Like any good movie, there were lots of laughs and hijinks and tears, sometimes mingled into a big messy pot. 

2014 was the last year of just Jared and I. We may have to hang up our international traveling caps for awhile. We may have to give up all those super sleepy mornings and late night concerts and flying halfway across the world. But can you even believe what we are about to gain? A baby! A real one. Oh a baby, a baby. So thank you for the adventures 2014, hopefully you prepared us even a little bit for the inevitable whirlwind that will be 2015. I feel like faith will be a big theme. And patience. And faith.