As many close to me know, 2016 was not, by any means, my year.

It consisted of many struggles and bumps in the road, many of which came with their own life lessons.

It seemed as if when one door closed (or so I thought) on a misfortunate event that another one would just rise up from the ashes. It definitely seemed that way for the entirety of the year.

But, despite all of that - despite the long, hard, and seemingly never ending 365 days that was the year 2016 - I learned about something most fortunate of all.

My strength.

With the recent emergence of 2017 and as I sit here writing this piece, I am thinking over the past year.

It started with a terrible break-up with a long-term boyfriend, which teetered off into a struggle to find happiness and confidence, and quite honestly continued to go downhill from there.

Essentially as soon as the year began I wished it would end.

I will come to admit though, as much as I make it seem like this is not the case, I severely struggled with coping with my break-up.

A lot of my articles are centered around the good I got out of it and what I learned from it and how I am bettering from it, but the truth is that there was and is a huge mental battle that's behind it as well.

The way it ended was terrible and was done very disrespectfully, and that factor alone severely affected my mentality in a lot of ways.

It has taken about a year for me to recover from it all and the atrocity that was 2016. It was a year of many lows and many deep depths that I did not think I would ever be able to get out of.

It did get better, though. Despite all my beliefs on the matter.

I still have my moments, yes. There are still nights where I sit in bed in tears over certain endeavors that occurred. But honestly, I am so astonished and thankful for how far I have come.

I can't stress that enough because I really was in a dark place just some short months ago. I was devoid of hope, and really didn't believe things could get much better.

So for this year, for the entirety of 2017, I have vowed that it is the year for me.

It is the year I live for myself, make decisions for myself, and do things that make myself happy.

It's not that I mean to sound selfish, but for the past year and probably even longer than that, I have lived in regards to other people. I have done things to make others happy and have cared so incredibly deeply (and too much) about what others wanted. I let it control me. I didn't put myself first, I put others. So much so that it started to mentally drain me and negatively affect me emotionally.

So for 2017, I want to live for myself. Put myself in the center for once, and stop conforming to what other people want and expect of me.

I am good enough how I am. And I deserve just as much happiness as the next person. I have a lot to give and those who cannot see that, don't deserve to have me in their life anyways.

And I am so glad I have finally come to see that.

Here's to 2017.