2024 has been a transformative year for me, marking the moment when I finally reached a significant milestone and saw my long-held dream come to life in a burst of joy and fulfillment.
My Milestone: I have reached the age of collecting my full monthly amount from Social Security. I always knew that day would come, and it felt strange when it finally did. How time flies. However, I still work remotely four days a week programming financial reports for a bank. I’m not done working yet.
My Dream: I have written and published a book on Amazon—with the help of a fantastic book coach. This has been a dream of mine for ten years, so it feels like a big accomplishment to me.
As I approach the three-year mark of living in Denver, I can genuinely say this has been the place where I have healed the most from past religious trauma, and I feel like I am finally discovering who I am. Learning to live by God’s grace rather than Christian legalism has been liberating.
With my newfound freedom, the biggest question I have learned to ask myself this year is, “What do I want?”
Below are five ways I answered this question in 2024.
I want to write a book, so I searched online for a book coach at the end of 2023 and found Sandra Byrd, a seasoned published author of over 50 books. We began our weekly coaching sessions in January 2024. After intense focus and effort for eleven months to organize my thoughts enough to become a book, Dying to Belong was published in November 2024. It is a compilation of everything I learned about how we can belong in an unhealthy way to groups, especially churches with a culture that leans towards control.
I want to volunteer for an organization that helps the exploited, so I have been actively involved with Re-fined, which cultivates relationships with individuals impacted by exploitation. I participate in dinners and activities in the recovery homes that Re-fined partners with to provide support services. One of my favorite activities with the women was painting a bird with watercolors. It is such a great way to bond and relax with each other. I also participate in the faithful friend program, where I meet regularly with a woman who lives in one of our partner homes. I love these women—they are so brave.
I want to build a solid base of friends in Denver, so I consistently participated in the Collective groups offered by my church, Lifegate. Our group meets at church four times yearly for an entire month to discuss a topic in the Bible. Then, throughout the year, we do fun activities with each other, continuing to nurture our friendships. I also participate in the Lifegate Encore group potlucks and have built friendships with people my age. In addition, I have cultivated friendships with several other women who live in the Denver area and those living out of state. This is a picture of my December 6, 2024, book launch party with some friends in the Denver area. My neighbor, Bonnie, is taking the photo.
I want to discover more of Colorado, so I went on several in-state trips. One of the big surprises this year was Crested Butte, which I visited in the summer with my friends Cathy and Jennifer. Then, in September, my daughter and I spent a weekend in Crested Butte to see the magnificent Aspens cover the mountainside with bright yellow and a touch of orange. I also hiked in the Rocky Mountains in June with my high school friend Debbie. It was a challenging hike, but I did it! My friend Therese and I enjoyed the warm waters of Glenwood Hot Springs when she visited me in May.
I want to visit one city I had never been to, so my daughter and I flew to Austin, Texas, in January 2024 and stayed in a cute pink and white tiny house near downtown Austin. We visited the Noll family and took a drive to Waco, Texas, to see Magnolia.
2024 has been a year of tremendous growth, personally and spiritually, and I plan to keep asking myself, “What do I want in 2025? One of those “wants” is to write another book with my book coach. This book will be different from Dying to Belong. I’ll keep it a surprise since I haven’t written one word yet, but I have a burning passion for the subject I want to write about.
I hope you ask yourself, “What do I want in 2025?” and then go after it with all your heart, soul, and mind. Now that I’m collecting those social security checks, I realize life is too short not to ask this question. Every day is a gift, and I want to treat it that way. Merry Christmas.
