Recap: It happened all at once.

The day came to me out of nowhere. I was signing and dating something and realized a year had came and went at the company. “Already!”  I thought to myself as I filed the document away. At that point I was done with my work so I decided to take a walk around the warehouse. Just a year ago, I was an unemployed college graduate struggling to find work when one great opportunity came out of nowhere.

Not knowing how long I would work there, I tried to do as many things as I could with the money I was receiving. There were somethings that I knew for sure I needed to get done and you can find those in the previous posts on In Transition. To think I not only achieved the things I wanted to get done but I gained so much more.

It made me realize that although a year feels like it goes by so quickly, a lot can happen.

IT HAPPENED ALL AT ONCE.

I got myself up to date with my student loans, I got my new car which I was able to get myself with no cosigner (luckily) and I’ve been able to help my parents with things here and there. I’ve been able to repay people that have always been there for me. That has definitely helped me get my confidence back. I’ve gained some experience in a new field which I am considering pursuing and …I even found the love of my life.

I’ve still got some things to do, some improvements to make like we all do I suppose but to think I pretty much got everything I’ve ever wanted in only a year is pretty amazing. I’m  a lucky girl.

The reason why I wanted to create this post was not just to recap what I’ve been doing but just to talk about the concept of the year in general. People seem to have this idea that you can’t get much done in a year. That a year is not enough for anything. For example, if you were to tell someone you’ve been working somewhere for only a year or if you’ve been in a relationship with someone for a year, people tend to underestimate it a little bit. They’ll say “Oh you’re still learning” or ” Oh that’s not a long time” or “It’s still new” or the “ONLY a year..” phrase. But you can learn to do so much.

For example, I’ve been working at my job for only a year but in that time span, I’ve learned a lot about the production process, the interdependence of each department, the dynamic of the people in this particular facility, a few different computer programs, the gossip, and how to do my job as well as the jobs of others in the facility(many don’t know that…I guess now they do.) I would say I could probably help solve many problems in the overall facility just by everything I have learned in one year of working there. How’s that for experience.

Another example, Love. It’s only been a little more than half a year and I know so much and a lot has happened (mostly great things of course) and I know enough to happily embark on the biggest change I’ll probably ever experience in my life…. well that and possibly having kids. That’s only in such “little” time. I’ve come to know many great couples with the same experience. But that’s a whole ‘ nother post.

Perhaps it’s a good thing that people don’t realize how much can happen in a year. That’s because if we did understand that many changes are possible in a year’s time, we’d be so much harder on ourselves and maybe we wouldn’t be able to appreciate years when we kind of just coasted along and nothing particularly remarkable happened. We’d probably deem ourselves as failures and throw a pity party instead of cutting ourselves some slack. Lord knows we don’t need that. We humans in one way or another aim really high for one thing or another. We certainly don’t need to beat ourselves up any further.

This is the year I realized that it doesn’t take much time to change your life.

Which did you experience in one year that changed your life?

And which year did you find yourself just simply coasting along?