2015 in Review: A Year of Love and Strength

Last year’s year in review was all about the journey back to me. I described 2014 as “the toughest and most exhilarating year of my life to date.” I shared 70 things I enjoyed or endured during the year to capture the emotion of it all.
Looking back on 2014 now, I’d say it was a tumultuous year. I’m a much stronger and happier person because of the life-changing year.
Strength and love were my two constants in 2015.
I don’t need to write a cryptic list of the things I enjoyed or endured because I can share freely some of the amazing things I did in 2015.
For one thing, loving myself became a priority in 2015. Jumping into another serious relationship was not even on my radar screen. It was a year of finally putting myself first which, in turn, made me a better mother, friend and human being.

My Thoughts on Love and Completeness post was written in March and still rings very true 9 months later.

Lifting weight became my new therapy. I build a tremendous amount of muscle to the point where my outside physique just about matched my inner strength. I deadlifted over one and a half times my body weight and am hoping to deadlift double my body weight next year (at 40 years old!).

I wrote about Lifting Myself Up With Strength Training for World Moms Blog and how I gained so much more than muscle.

I also wrote In Her Skin, where I made the realization that I was finally comfortable in my own skin.

I wrote haiku, though it was much lighter and acceptable to share than the haiku I have written in the past.

I became a contributor to HuffPost Divorce and was asked to share my experiences with readers over there for posts like this one.
Of course, 2015 wasn’t all rainbows and unicorns. 

I wrote things like This sh*t is hard because being a single mom can be get to you some days, and The Broken Pieces because people respond to brokenness in different ways.

I made it a point to be a beacon of light, a lamppost, to those who were going through the darkness I went through last year. I realized my story, even small bits of it, helped others feel less alone.
And you know what else I did?

I wrote a freaking book.

I made it to my pub date. I worked with editors and publicists, received endorsements and enjoyed all kinds of buzz around the book.
Simple Giving is the culmination of so much writing and research and connecting with people whom I admire and just emptying all the thoughts and experiences around philanthropy I’ve had over the past few years onto 210 beautiful pages. I can’t put into words what it means to me to share it with the world.
Jenny McCarthy even tweeted about the book after she interviewed me on her Dirty, Sexy, Funny show on Sirius XM.

Surreal.
And then there was the time when I was dressed up like Wonder Woman when my ex-husband picked up the boys for the night, and he didn’t say a word.
Not one word. My friends had plenty to say though.

I also wrote about Setting Life on Fire because that’s exactly what I’ve done, This is My Happy Place because I’ve found my happy place, and Breathless because that’s how you all leave me sometimes.