And the word of the year is ...

Ok, so back to my word of the year.

A year ago my resolution was to just pull my life back together after being blindsided by a massive breakup. I feel I passed that goal with flying colors. 2009 turned out to be the greatest year of my adult life (I count my adult life to be a total of six years now). Pulling my life together became my mantra, and in practicing my mantra I better learned how to deal with change and adversity (after five years of going through plenty of change and adversity, it was about dang time), and I came out better for it.

Before that became my mantra last year, I'd already made resolutions along the lines of: send more birthday cards, make more random phone calls to friends, practice more random acts of kindness, etc.

Boom. There's my word of the year: Kindness.

Photo by the ever-so-talented Noodles.

I spent last year focusing on myself, rediscovering who I was and what it was that made me happy ... dealing with problems that had been pulling me down longer than I care to admit. Many, many, many people either knowingly or unwittingly came to my aid during that time, and I want to thank them and the universe by spreading their kindness on to others in a sort of pay-it-forward sense. This could include but is not limited to: sending more birthday cards, making more random phone calls to friends and practicing more random acts of kindness.

But this practice of kindness isn't just an outward effort. It's about treating myself more kindly too: eating well, exercising, making the doctors appointments I continue to put off. Not to mention I have a sneaking suspicion that my outward effort at kindness will have it's own inward side effects -- I don't think I'm a mean person, but as an only child who has long been stubbornly independent, I could probably stand to think about others more often.

So that's my word, and I'm sticking to it. Hopefully you will see my efforts reflected here at The Modern Gal. You've always been good at keeping me accountable, Modern Friends, so I expect no less of you this year!