In 2014, I wrote a blog post called noticing, lately that I’m pretty certain was intended to be a series. One image and one sentence per day, compiled together at the end of the week, a little montage of glimpses into my days. A way to flex my photography muscles, forcing myself to break out my big camera. A way to write words without needing to write too many, one poetic sentence was enough.

Nearly five months ago I stopped dying my hair. It was July 7th, and after I rinsed the color from my hair for the last time I went to pick up a rental car downtown, my hair still wet, ready to leave first thing in the morning. Two weeks earlier I’d had an entirely different plan, and yet on July 8th I drove away from Denver alone and headed west towards a very spontaneous new life. June had been tumultuous in the way you can’t expect until it’s suddenly happening to you, and I had no idea that the next month would somehow, unexplainably, just-when-you-think-things-can’t-get-worse, hold even more tumult.

Four and a half years ago I moved to Hanoi, Vietnam, with really high hopes and an English teaching contract. I’d quit my job, broken up with my boyfriend, moved out of my apartment, put my things in storage, said my goodbyes, flew across the world alone.

And then I changed my mind.

There was the very real possibility that driving the thousand miles from Denver to Los Angeles in one day by myself would be entirely too difficult.

I spoke to my therapist this weekend, for the first time in weeks.

We’ve ebbed and flowed, she and I, sometimes going months without meeting (whether in person or over the phone), sometimes twice in a week.

It’s been ten years. May 2010, desperately searching Psychology Today for someone who could help me,

support me,

hear me,

see me.

May 2010, before millennial was a term and before therapy was trendy. 22 years old and unravelling quickly.

March, 2013.

A move from the small town I grew up in to a new city two hours away where I knew just one person, and only a little bit.

A move from a job I'd kept past college that I was trying desperately to get out of.

A move to a new job that paid almost double, that allowed for long walks outside and freedom.

A move from my childhood home to an apartment on the West Side with two strangers from Craigslist.

A move to everything new.

I write a lot about taking big leaps.

I've written about feeling the fear and doing it anyway, having faith, trusting your gut, choosing freedom and adventure and aliveness.

As it turns out, taking a big leap isn't a one-and-done kind of thing.

They're here again! I've loved these little intention sheets for the past 2 years, and this year you bet I will be bringing them to the NYE party I'm going to and forcing everyone to do them with me :)

Download yours for free! Do them with your kids, bring them to parties, make it a New Years Day tradition.