Saying Goodbye to the Old Year and to YOG by Kat Magendie

I went back to read my very first YOG, just to see what I’d written, how I’d written it, and how I was grateful in that moment. So very tempting to place that same gratitude post here again. The message is the same. I am still that woman; mostly, except I am a year older and have a year’s worth of experiences that can’t help but affect one in ways both subtle and profound. How appropriate here at this year’s end I received gifts that will change my new year. Ones that will change the way I see the world, and maybe how the world sees me. Receiving what you asked for is both thrilling and terrifying. I am up for the challenge. I am ready. I am strong. But mostly, I am filled with hopeful gratitude.

Looking back over the past year, it both seems as if it flew by and seems as if it is a distant dream. There were constants in my life, and this YOG is one of them. Days the words spilled and then gathered on the YOG page; and then, the days where I struggled to find words to fill a post. Like now. Now that the time has come for my last YOG post, for me to say “Goodbye” to this year of gratitude within this forum, I am at a loss for the perfect words. Oh, how I wanted this last post to be perfect.

I leave you with a bit of my words from a year ago. I think I said it best then, and it still applies almost three-hundred and sixty-five days later.

Simply by the act of saying, “Thank you,” I am released from old demons. I am unchained from fear and worry. From the comfort of my couch where I am snuggled under a throw while the wild wind rushes over and across the mountain ridge, whips the bare branches, pushes against my log house, from this place of security I sigh as if an old dog on a porch and breathe out, “Thank you.” Does it matter who or what I give thanks to? No, it is only important that I breathe in the air and breathe out the gratitude.

Thank you all, readers. Thank you for visiting and reading and commenting and for just being. This is it. My last YOG post. Here's to whatever comes next.