{"id":1851,"date":"2011-12-31T23:13:08","date_gmt":"2012-01-01T07:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heathervale.com\/blog\/?p=1851"},"modified":"2023-04-17T16:11:58","modified_gmt":"2023-04-18T00:11:58","slug":"an-open-letter-to-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/heathervale.com\/blog\/2011\/12\/31\/an-open-letter-to-2011\/","title":{"rendered":"An Open Letter to 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"<iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/like.php?href=https:\/\/heathervale.com\/blog\/2011\/12\/31\/an-open-letter-to-2011\/&amp;layout=standard&amp;show_faces=1&amp;width=450&amp;action=like&amp;colorscheme=light&amp;font=\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border:none; overflow:hidden; width:450px; height:25px\"><\/iframe><iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/like.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fheathervale.com%2Fblog%2F2011%2F12%2F31%2Fan-open-letter-to-2011%2F&amp;layout=standard&amp;show_faces=true&amp;width=450&amp;action=like&amp;colorscheme=light&amp;height=80\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border:none; overflow:hidden; width:450px; height:80px;\" allowTransparency=\"true\"><\/iframe><p><a href=\"http:\/\/heathervale.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Bandon-July2011-rabbits-HK01-sm.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1852\" style=\"margin: 5px 10px;\" title=\"Heather and Konan - Bandon OR\" src=\"http:\/\/heathervale.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Bandon-July2011-rabbits-HK01-sm.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/heathervale.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Bandon-July2011-rabbits-HK01-sm.jpg 461w, https:\/\/heathervale.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Bandon-July2011-rabbits-HK01-sm-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 461px) 100vw, 461px\" \/><\/a>Dear 2011,<\/p>\n<p>Often we go through life looking for easy routes to happiness. And at the end of the day (or year), when people talk about what they&#8217;re grateful for, it&#8217;s the &#8220;good&#8221; times they focus on.<\/p>\n<p>In a reversal, and in honor of my good friends Yin and Yang, I&#8217;d like to thank you, 2011, for the &#8220;bad&#8221; times too.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps &#8220;good&#8221; and &#8220;bad&#8221; are too black-and-white. After all, Yin and Yang would tell us that every good has its bad side, and every bad has its good side.<\/p>\n<p>So, 2011, I&#8217;d like to thank you for the easy times and the challenging ones. For the times when it felt like I was zooming straight ahead, firing on all cylinders, and for the times when it felt like I was hitting roadblocks or getting stuck in the mud.<\/p>\n<p>For the joy, the pain, the sunshine, and the rain (yeah, I know, I sound like an old song by Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock) \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>Yes, you&#8217;ve brought me more challenges than I&#8217;ve ever experienced in my life (or at least in a very long time), on many levels. But I&#8217;m sure I signed up for them, way back when, before I made a return to this earth in human form.<\/p>\n<p>So you&#8217;ve more than delivered. And in the process I&#8217;ve learned more about my weaknesses, and more about my strengths, than I ever could have imagined.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s what&#8217;s required for us to learn, grow or develop in life.<\/p>\n<p>And one of the things I&#8217;ve learned is to embrace every bump in the road and every rainy cloud, because the bumps are paved with gold and the clouds have silver linings.<\/p>\n<p>2011, I&#8217;ll never forget you and what you&#8217;ve taught me. I&#8217;m grateful for every moment you&#8217;ve spent with me, no matter how much I may have resisted you at the time.<\/p>\n<p>Now I bid you a fond farewell as I look forward to 2012, and what exciting experiences it will bring me in the coming year.<\/p>\n<p>Lots of love,<\/p>\n<p>Heather<br \/>\nxoxo<\/p>\n<p>P.S. Enjoy that classic hip song I mentioned above, in your honor &#8212; this version brought to us by my old friend from Toronto, Chris Sheppard:<\/p>\n<span class=\"vvqbox vvqyoutube\" style=\"width:425px;height:335px;\"><span id=\"vvq-1851-youtube-1\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=zF3vVrPJ3rA\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/zF3vVrPJ3rA\/0.jpg\" alt=\"YouTube Preview Image\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/span>\n<p>P.P.S. Happy New Year!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Keep Unwrapping the Mysteries of Life!<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Heather Vale Goss\" src=\"http:\/\/heathervale.com\/images\/sigHVG_2.1_blue.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"205\" height=\"35\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear 2011, Often we go through life looking for easy routes to happiness. And at the end of the day (or year), when people talk about what they&#8217;re grateful for, it&#8217;s the &#8220;good&#8221; times they focus on. In a reversal, and in honor of my good friends Yin and Yang, I&#8217;d like to thank you, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[377,763,22],"tags":[835,834,832,833,816],"class_list":["post-1851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-celebrations","category-inspiration-motivation","category-spirituality-life","tag-dj-ez-rock","tag-joy-and-pain","tag-new-years-eve","tag-rob-base","tag-yin-and-yang"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>An Open Letter to 2011 - Heather Vale Unwrapped<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/heathervale.com\/blog\/2011\/12\/31\/an-open-letter-to-2011\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"An Open Letter to 2011 - Heather Vale Unwrapped\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dear 2011, Often we go through life looking for easy routes to happiness. 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