i’ve never had any particular issues with march. the month, not the act of “walk(ing) in a military manner with a regular measured tread.” just to be clear.

anyway, march. i’ve never had any strong feelings toward its 31 days either way. it’s not my favorite month or my least favorite. st. patrick’s is fun i guess and my dad was born in that month, so that’s cool, too. but other than that, the third month of the year has never been marked by anything of grand proportions.

that is, until last year.

last march was perhaps one of the hardest months of my life. for reasons i don’t really want to get into now because i’ve been really good about keeping this place a relatively “sadness-free” zone this year and i really want to continue that momentum, but yeah, let’s just say God used march 2013 to stretch and grow and definitely humble me in ways i wasn’t expecting or maybe even prepared for. but 365 days later, i’m really thankful for that time.

i know it’s terribly cliche to say that everything happens for a reason and that God has a plan for every struggle or difficult season (that kind of rhymed, didn’t it?) you’re forced to endure. but it’s true. sometimes you need to be broken down in order to fully understand grace. the grace God extends to you every single day, and the grace you should in turn, also extend to yourself. sometimes life is hard and it’s okay to allow yourself to admit that.

anyway, this wasn’t meant to be a downer, rather, more of a reflection of how much has transpired and how much i’ve changed in a year. and how despite the tears and the moments where i would have loved nothing more than to have hibernated from the world for weeks at a time, i emerged from my march-icoma (like a mexicoma which is what carrie bradshaw suffered from in the first sex and the city movie) a stronger and wiser and more self-aware version of me.

so as the calendar page turns this saturday and march arrives yet again, i want to affirm you in something. if you’re facing your own march-icoma, or february-icoma (doesn’t sound a good, does it?), i want to tell you that things will indeed get better. maybe not right away, but in time, they will. standing here a year later and looking back upon everything i’ve seen, done, experienced, etc., i would have never imagined all of these things would have awaited me on the heels of, well, for lack of a better term, a really really sucky month. but maybe sometimes you have to go through a sucky month to enjoy eleven more really really good ones.

at least, that’s how i’d like to look at it.

happy (almost) march.