Sweetly gifted from my friend Bethany—she knew I needed that word so much.

The irony is that I picked the word “confidence.”

It’s the word I fight with the most—from the beginning of January all the way through the end-of-year emails I find myself writing. Because to have confidence would mean I would have to believe in something far more anchored than my doubts, questions, and queries. And I know myself all too well—I find my theories far more fascinating than confidence.

But I chose it anyway.

And yet, “shaky” is a far better descriptor while I reflect on my tenuous Yeses and uncertain Nos. “Shaky” makes more sense—there’s a consistency to it. “Shaky” is what I know best.

Oh, but confidence—like the confidence I used to buy a shimmering blazer to dance and sing the night away with women I hardly knew in person, but I knew in soul. I guess that’s what they mean by soul sister.

And to use that same audacity to say yes—to moving to another state. That confidence to place a sign in my yard to build another community—oh, yes. I used that word “confidence” as often as I could.

I watched it shake after I spent days watching the sign in my yard acquire dust until it vanished. And it challenged my theory that it didn’t acquire dust—perhaps it turned into it right in front of me.

Oh, the confidence! To say yes to a retreat in the middle of selling a home so we could move. It felt like running towards the decision, staring it down, and boldly proclaiming it will not move me. I used that confidence then. Could I actually hold onto it now?

And they saw me. By “they” I mean the children who watched my every move in the middle of absolute madness of my own making.

It’s THAT confidence they held onto when we shifted into a new season. Albeit one set of eyes now looks down at me because those eyes decided to be on a head whose body kept growing and growing.

I’m holding onto that confidence. Without it, I wouldn’t have had the most catastrophically marvelous year.

I’m glad I had the audacity to live it. I hope I never forget it.

An aside: HELLO AGAIN FRIENDS.

It’s been longer than a wild minute so I decided to recap my year with you—between selling a home, saying wild yeses to commitments that stretched me, a job change in the middle of the year, and moving to my husband’s home state of Nebraska, my poor blog took a backseat.

So enjoy my ironic musings. I should have also titled this, “Tales from a 3,” but I made sure I hit 365 words even :)

This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in the series "365 Words".