Sometimes, I think the most interesting question is "how did we get here?"

I like it a lot more than "where are we going?", which, while important, often stresses me out because the future is really big and it's easier to stay in bed and watch old episodes of How I Met Your Mother, once again thinking about that first apartment we shared in Roanoke and the big old television we first watched it on.

I think about, with a bit of a laugh, how I had initially been a Psychology major, mostly because I took Intro to Psych in high school and got an A and I loved talking about people and what they thought and why. In college, it was fine for one and a half semesters, before I realized that Psychology was a science and I would most likely have to do some math.

As an eighteen year-old, I never knew what I wanted to do--I always assumed that I'd just work for my parents. I felt lucky that I didn't really have to be in school to get a job, even though I wanted to go to school and of course, my parents encouraged me to do so. And, even though I don't work for my parents today, I'm thankful for that slightly false security it gave me--encouraging me to study something I really loved, even if it didn't seem super practical.

I changed my course of study for the first time, from Psychology to Spanish. Another year passed before I made the switch to English, finally feeling that feeling you feel when you do something right, and your heart and your head kind of line up and uncertainty flees for a while.

The guy I was dating at the time said "You're not going to write," for whatever reason--maybe because I had broken up with him recently or maybe because he had already watched me jump from one major to the other.

But still, sometimes I feel as though I don't really write. Blogging is odd. But in undergrad and while getting my masters, I learned the value of reading and writing, and also of making connections with people on all kinds of different levels. You can do that through your words or a hug or the food you make. And all of it led me from Virginia to the frozen landscape of Minnesota to this never-ending summer in North Carolina, so thankful for Rob and this wonderful life we are somehow constructing for ourselves.

I will always remember visiting my alma mater in Farmville, sitting in one of my favorite professors' office with a cup of coffee in my hand, stressing out about the value of my M.A. as he told me not to worry so much about what exactly to do with a specific degree. "Are you reading?" he asked. "Are you writing? Are you happy?"

I'm still waiting for the moment where I let go of worry altogether, but every year I understand a bit more what it means to trust the journey.

How did you get here?

It was this year that I finally stopped measuring my life by semester.

Do grown people still do that? For so long, my year began in the fall, took a break around Christmas, and began again in January before ending in the spring. It was Freshman Year and The Summer Of, over and over again, I guess until recently, when I started running out of things to call them. I finished graduate school in October of 2012, and then it was 2013.

Recently, I've been thinking about the years that passed by not so long ago, the ones I always refer to by name--those years that made me into who I am today. I look back and am often slightly embarrassed by the girl who was there at the time, living out the scenarios that are now my memories. Those last years of high school seemed so crucial, and yet today I look back and say "how stupid," even though I needed them.

Junior Year of High School is when I started dating the boy who, five or six whole months later would be the first guy to break my heart. He taught me how to get over something and be stronger for it at the end of the day. I was really into my running and my school and my friends and my religion and I never anticipated a day when things would be different. I applied to colleges and went on visits and tried to picture a day where things might change, but I just couldn't see it yet.

Senior Year of High School was dramatic and life-changing in the way that high school is. New boyfriend, new heartbreak, except that this one taught me how not to get over something, and all the ways you could be regretful at the end of the day. I graduated and went to college, convinced that I would never change, that I would keep all the friends I had left back home, that this must be what growing up felt like.

Freshman and Sophomore Years of College were full of new people and self-discovery; a psychology major and a Spanish major and a whole lot of intro classes before I finally declared an English major. I learned that just because someone is handsome and nice doesn't mean he is sent to you from heaven above or something, and that notion was challenged at the beginning of Junior Year when the boy I believed to be my soul mate sat down on my bed and broke up with me. He was everything I thought I ever wanted, and for a year I had ignored how hard I needed to try to be everything he thought he ever wanted. Real love is work sometimes, but it isn't hard, and I hadn't learned that yet. He taught me to love myself and be happier for it at the end of the day.

The rest of Junior Year and the following Senior Year was what I suspect college is really supposed to be--I spent time making awesome memories with my friends. I was deeply engrossed in my courses, and read hundreds of pages a day in between classes. I started feeling like William Shakespeare and I knew each other well. I stayed out too late, often drank too much, and wore ridiculous outfits to theme parties with my roommates. We got in stupid fights and never really learned how to communicate until much later, but they were my best friends and we loved each other. We ate chips and queso dip almost every afternoon in our living room. I got a tattoo, wrote every day, could barely picture a life where I wasn't a student, and met the man that, five and a half years later, I'm about to marry.

My life has been so blessed. As I grow older I am learning to be so thankful for everyone whose path has crossed mine; for everything that has gotten me to where I am today. When I was in Virginia for Thanksgiving, my old roommates and I got together for a weekend and we picked up right where we left off and had a great time, but we still all seemed so much different--the better, adult versions of ourselves. Life happens and you lose track of time. Earlier this week, Rob and I were driving to dinner together, bundled up in our coats and scarves and I almost laughed looking out the snowy window thinking about winter in Minnesota--this random possibility that has become a reality for us. We live here now--we're done with school and we're working and this is our home now. I love it. I wouldn't change a thing.

Maybe as we grow older, we encounter fewer defining moments and feel less inclined to identify years in a special way. But maybe that's not true, either, because in 2013 I got engaged to the love of my life and moved to a new part of the country. I started blogging full time and challenged myself to write more and cook more and let go of the things that scare me. I'll never forget this year--it has been one of the best. Losing my dog has made it bittersweet, missing him so much and knowing that none of us will live forever, but hoping that we'll all be reunited in some way in the future.

And with 2014 looking at us from the last page of our calendars, I know that this new year will also be life-changing as I walk down the aisle and get a new last name and will probably move again (this time with my husband) and try to find more ways to push myself and get better and feel even more thankful for this life we're living.

All of these years are special, no matter how we refer to them when we look back.

Wishing you all love and peace and happiness, every day of every year.

Photo credit: Winona Grey Photography

After shooting in that field at pretty much the perfect time of day, we ventured over to Hampden-Sydney to finish up our engagement session with Ashley of V.A. Photography. It's hard to believe that five years ago at the end of October, I would walk into a Halloween party with my roommates and meet Rob. Time has really flown by.

Hampden-Sydney is so many things to us--the place where Rob studied and made life-long friends, my running destination (I'd run the six miles down Back Hampden-Sydney Road and stop at Rob's dorm, where he'd give me a Gatorade and we'd talk before driving me back), our weekend hang-out and our long-distance relationship training wheels.

Midnight breakfasts, tailgating parties with more chicken wings and oysters than you could ever eat, and cheap beer popping out of every cooler. There were stomach-aches and hangovers and country music, and there were great times with friends and big Sunday brunches in the dining hall at a huge table where we'd all laugh and eat omelets and drink fresh-squeezed juice from that juicer that you had to throw oranges into like a basketball. We stayed up too late and ate too much pizza and it was relatively un-glamorous, but we fell in love and I wouldn't trade it for the world.

  

  

Thank you all so much for letting me share these photos with you over the course of three weeks! 

I am so thrilled with the job that our photographer did. Thank you, Ashley!

In case you missed it: Part 1 | Part 2

(Outfit Details, same as Part 2:

My shirt is from Everlane, my jeans are these ones from Levi's, and my shoes are Converse.

Rob's wearing a tee from Eddie Bauer, J.Crew jeans, and Keds.)