The year of 2015 has been an odd one for me. I look outside my Los Angeles balcony and I pinch myself. How did I get here? I like to think of myself as someone who can walk through many doors.  I can slide through one set of doors and come out another set completely changed yet still the same.  It’s like I have had my own set of sliding doors that has been better than Gwyneth Paltrow’s movie from the late ’90s (back when she was not all GOOPy and annoying).  As a gifted young girl doors were opened to me. As a motivated young executive I have pushed through doors that were somewhat ajar and made them wide open not only for me but for others coming after me. Or so I hope.

This year, I was faced with many doors that I could go through akin to this hotel I recently stayed at in Atlanta where there were hundreds of doors to down upon. I needed the many doors this year. I specifically needed many doors in order for me to figure out that there was one door in particular that I had to leave through. The year 2015 was designated as the International Year of Light by the United Nations.  After many years stuck in the same location, I knew deep down I had to find my own light this past year and thus I walked out my long time door and didn’t look back.

Now., after finding my doors and having lived in three cities in one year, I have found myself feeling as if I have had to go through metaphorical windows. There were times when I felt that I could not quietly leave through a front door but would have to escape through a window.  Actually, I did have a situation that was scary where my team did have to leave through a back rooftop window.  I never imagined I would have to do such an escape. But back to my metaphorical journey where I have had to go through these windows of light and escape.   I’m reminded this past year of the scene in the movie the Fast & Furious 7 where Paul Walker and Vin Diesel escape from an Abu Dhabi skyscraper by revving up and gunning a mega supercar out through the windows, 50 stories high, then going straight into the adjoining skyscraper. Then they do it again.  Have you seen that scene?  That scene captures quite well my past year where I escape through one window to then escape through another. I am hoping that as the year ends and a new one begins, that my window escapes will come to an end.  I want find a happy spot from which to just stand and soak in the sun.   By the way, did you know that NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft conducted this year a close flyby of Pluto, becoming the first spacecraft in history to visit the distant world?  Considering how chaotic the world has been this year, maybe it would be great if we could find a way to live in Pluto.

While I have escaped and crashed though windows, I have been looking back at my year through a rear view mirror.  This year has passed by in a blur and I have found myself on a constant road.  While the scenery can be quite striking in a rear-view mirror, I am hoping that 2016 will be one in which I get to look ahead more.