A Year In The Life (2013)

As 2013 reaches its finale, I keep reminiscing over this year. A lot's happened. A lot's changed. And so I'm going to use the method of going month-by-month to sum all of it up.


2013

January: I moved to Washington on January 5th. When school started up, I was the new kid. I was friendly with a lot of people in my classes but I didn't have any real friends. It was definitely hard to be away from family back home, too. Then I got involved in this amazing youth group called Young Life. I started to meet more people but by the end of January, I was still left with acquaintances.

February: I went home to Michigan. On my first day back, I was cyberbullied by my ex and all his friends. (I wrote a blogpost about that. Don't worry. Everything worked out in my favor.) When I came back, I was absolutely torn apart and ready to give up. But I didn't.

March: I started up my beauty channel on YouTube (aka the best decision of my life). I adore being a beauty guru. YouTube makes me happy and I love using my free time to make videos. March was a good month.

April: I went to Forks, Port Angeles and La Push. Since I was a die-hard Twilight fan in middle school, this was actually pretty crazy. (I think I wrote a blog post on this vacation.) I got pictures by the Forks sign and the beach and everything was just perfect.

May: I LITERALLY REMEMBER NOTHING FROM MAY I'M SORRY

June: The second school was released, I went home to Michigan. I spent a little while there. While I was home, I met my best friend in person, Anna. :) Being home was better this time, compared to February, because I knew who I wanted to see and who I wanted to avoid.

July: I spent the majority of July traveling around Europe with my cousin, Haley. (Link to all my Europe vlogs is: youtube.com/JordanWinansVlogs.) It was the best summer of my life and I still can't believe I got to go to all these amazing countries and cities. Stepping foot into London was unbelievable. I never thought I'd be able to go there and being there was utterly surreal. (Also, I turned 16 in a castle in southern Germany so that was cool.) Once I was back in Michigan, a bus took a bunch of people and me down to Indiana for the weekend to a convention for a program I'm in. There, I performed an original song in front of 300+ people (you can see the performance at youtube.com/JordanWinansMusic) and made friends that'll be around for a lifetime. Leaving Indiana was even harder than leaving Germany.

August: I came back to Washington. This month consisted of lots of back-to-school preparations and finishing summer projects. Nothing too special.

September: I went to my junior homecoming with choir kids! It was the best homecoming ever! (You can check out how I got ready for it at youtube.com/JordanWinansBeauty and my homecoming experience at youtube.com/JordanWinansVlogs). As school started up, I began to make lots of real friends. First of all, I became an assistant for my school's dance team. I do their makeup and videotape them. It's so much fun. So in September I met all the dancers (there's 27 altogether) and started creating friendships with them. Another way I began to make friends was through normal classes at school. I started making an effort to talk to people. Things were looking up in September.

October: In October, I went to my first haunted house. IT WAS HORRIBLE. That's pretty much October summed up. (Sorry.)

November: My grandma and great-grandpa visited for Thanksgiving. Seeing them in Washington was phenomenal. I love them so much. We went to the space needle, too, which was fantastic. (You can check that experience out at youtube.com/JordanWinansVlogs.) The worst part of November was when they went back home to Michigan.

December: Well, here we are in December. Christmas was good. Winter break is going alright. I've started watching American Horror Story (currently on the 2nd season). And that's that.

Between all these moments, there were things happening with me. It's no secret that I struggle from depression and anxiety and whatever else blah blah blah. The point is, I'm still here. I stuck it out. I've stuck around. And I'm here to tell you that whatever you're going through- it'll get better. I believe in you. I love you. And it gets better.

Here's to loving ourselves better next year.

-Jordan xx

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