Well, it’s been awhile since I’ve done one of these.
Both a blogpost in general, and a blogpost about the new year. At the close of 2019, I was feeling hopeful – very excited to launch into a second iteration of the 20s, an era I feel so close to. Unfortunately, as we all know, the current 20s seem to have reflected the most unwanted portions of the 1920s back unto us – all the pandemic and none of the flappers and jazz. At the end of 2020, I wasn’t feeling inclined to reflect on the past 365 days, and while hope was starting to bud in my chest with the advent of a COVID vaccine, I was wary of jumping in headfirst.
But here we are, almost wrapping up the first month of 2022, and I could not feel more different than I did at the start of 2020 or 2021.
Most of that is thanks to Paris.
In December of 2021, I set out on the adventure of a lifetime with a solo trip to France, with stops in Strasbourg, Versailles, and Paris – each one of them an absolute dream.
It’s funny how life – and a pandemic – can change you. Just a few years ago I had the heartbreak of all heartbreaks when my trek to Mount Everest was cancelled. At the time, I wanted to turn something awful into an opportunity, and wanted to spontaneously book a flight somewhere else – I’d saved up the airline miles for Everest, and could quite literally fly anywhere in the world. However, my travel companion for my Everest trip decided she did not want to go on a spontaneous trip, and at the time, I thought there was no way I could solo travel anywhere else. I knew people who did it, I’d seen blogs and Instagram posts about solo travelers, and the idea was extremely appealing to me, but I just didn’t think it was something I was capable of.
Fast forward three years, and I booked a solo trip to Europe without even thinking twice. And on top of that, the concept never felt odd to me – the entire trip felt completely natural and comfortable. I felt incredibly safe and capable. I believed in myself more than any other time in my life, and I’d been missing out on that feeling.
For too long, my confidence and self-worth had been strongly tied to my job in healthcare communications, and after a few difficult years navigating a global pandemic and watching my words fall flat in the ears of people who didn’t believe in the pandemic, care about it, or want to do anything to protect their neighbors, it was hard to feel like I hadn’t become a failure. I couldn’t reach those people – no matter how I tried to explain what was happening in healthcare, what people could do about it, and why this-and-that myth about COVID-19 was false, it didn’t get through to a large group of our population, and that felt personal to me for a long time. I felt that I’d failed the community, myself, and my fellow coworkers, who were working day-in-and-day-out, exhausting themselves beyond belief to care for patients.
Feeling like I was failing every day, on top of the other emotions of a global pandemic, had launched me into a pretty dark place for a long time – I didn’t feel like myself anymore, and I did not like myself anymore. I didn’t know who I was becoming, but I didn’t like her, and I didn’t know how to get back the parts of my old self that I had liked.
The good news is that throughout 2021, I slowly crawled back to a place nearer to the version of myself that I want to be, and this trip served some of the most important moments of self-reflection: I was not only re-igniting the parts of myself that I’d once thought I’d lost, but I was discovering the strongest parts of myself that I’ve developed throughout the past two years. Every day in France, I was proud of myself – the revived parts of my old self, and the resilient parts of my new self.
Beginning this new year truly feels like a new beginning, in ways that I haven’t felt over the past two years in the pandemic. I feel renewed.
Candidly, I don’t have any expectations that this year will bring a startling end to the pandemic. I expect that it will continue, and that frankly, we may see some of the most difficult times yet. However, I somehow feel at peace with that. I feel the strength that I need to make it through anything, and I feel a sense of control in my own life, even if I can’t influence others to do what I perceive as the right thing during this time. I am content with knowing that I am doing all that I can to support my family, friends, colleagues, community, and for the first time in awhile – myself. I have put myself on the backburner too many times. I have been quiet out of convenience for others, I have worked too many late nights making COVID-related communication pieces, I have lingered in discontent, I have denied myself what I’ve needed to thrive so others would be more comfortable. This year, I am taking small steps to celebrate and empower myself. The version of me who became strong but hopeless and defeated in the past few years is finding the version of me that was happy, creative, and excited about life.
That may all sound a little cheesy, and I don’t love sounding like the intro to a non-fiction book about picking yourself up after hard times, but I really feel like a whole new human being. I knew I was in a terrible mental state during the past two years, but I didn’t fully realize just how bad it had gotten until it started to get better. I’m glad to start feeling like myself again, and I’m excited to celebrate her in 2022.
With that, expect several posts about my escapades in France over the next few weeks.
After all, there are always more adventures ahead.
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