Dear 2017,
I know it’s cliche, but you really have flown by and what a year we have had. When we first met, I’m going to be honest I didn’t really like you much. I had been through a lot with your friend 2016 and worried that you were going to be the same. However, much to my delight, you were nothing like your friend and my first impressions of you couldn’t have been more wrong. 2017 you have surprised me in so many ways, many good and some bad, but I feel like we have muddled through pretty well and I know that I am going to look back on you as an old friend.
Focus and direction were both things we gained this year as we made mistakes and learnt from them. We had a trip to University and realised it wasn’t where we were meant to be. We swiftly came home and, surrounded by the love and support of some pretty awesome friends and family, started on a new path. 2017, you saw me begin an amazing job, surrounded by the loveliest team that I could ever wish for and with that came drive and direction – a feeling that I was making a difference. This is a feeling that I know I will continue with into 2018, but will always have started with you.
But what is work without a bit of play? Travel wise we took some pretty dang cool trips this year, didn’t we? Edinburgh, London, the Loire Valley and Paris to name just a few, falling in love with each city’s little quirks along the way. I also branched out from 2016’s grasp and took one more step to control by travelling alone to Hello World at the NEC and loved every second of it – take that 2016 Holly! We have 100% mastered train travel and even started driving lessons and I cannot wait to see where these things will take me with 2018 just round the corner.
2017, you taught me the value of good friendships and that there is a hella’ lot of love within my family, who faced more loss than we deserved this year. Our ability to pull together continues to amaze me. Good job guys, well actually more than good job, amazing job – I am full of love for each and every one of you. My friends have also spent the year being nothing but stunning, as always, and I am so proud of everything that they have been achieving this year. They continue to inspire me and I have to say we have managed long distance friendship pretty well.
Elsewhere we learnt that wheat isn’t good for me and with that said goodbye to great tasting biscuits, cakes and bad eczema. You win some you loose some and talking about winning, we, alongside Dad, managed to renovate a whole bathroom and that is definitely something that I never thought I would be saying. I have found my love for DIY and I know this is something that is going to stay with me for a long time, maybe one day I will renovate my own home!
On the style front I learnt that it doesn’t need to be black to be stylish and feel like I have injected some really great colour into my wardrobe, mostly pink but I’m not even sorry! I have loved sharing my style here on The Art of Being Holly and I know this is something I will continue to do. We have had an amazing year on the blog, going from strength to strength, we reached 10,000 views this year and there are more and more of you sharing this journey each month. For that I will be forever grateful and will always remember that it all began properly with you, 2017.
There are thousands more memories we have shared this year from concerts and cinema trips to food to family, and all the stuff in between, but we can’t stick around all day and tomorrow we will be saying goodbye. All I would like to say is thank you for a great year, despite our losses, we have grown stronger than ever this year and I can’t wait to see what 2018 has for me.
Love always,
Holly x
What was your favourite moment of 2017 and what are you looking forwards to next year?