2023: A Look Back

2023...don't let the door hit you on the way out.

There were certainly some highlights, but overall, it was a very difficult year.

The good stuff:

We started the year on the highest of notes by adopting Avalanche on January 1! It's hard to believe we've had him for an entire year already!

Other than Avalanche and spending time with our families, the best parts of the year revolved around travel.

Our domestic travel in 2023 included:

• seven trips to WDW January, August, September, September, October, November, and December.
• a trip to San Diego in February
• a trip to Houston in March
• a trip to Boston in May
• a trip to Phoenix in November
• many driving trips, including five to Canada (which we pretty much consider domestic travel for us)
• a Disney Cruise in May

You may recall that I earned the Southwest Companion Pass and we made as much use of it as we possibly could. Over the course of 2023, we are able to use it for 21 free one-way flights for C! Twenty-one! Even though it expired at the end of 2023, Southwest had another promotion to earn a Companion Pass for two months - early January through early March - so we took advantage of that and have free companion flights booked for three upcoming trips. This will bring our total number of free one-way flights to 27! (In case you're wondering why it's an odd number, we flew on Southwest down to Costa Rica in June, but did not fly home on Southwest.)

Our international travel included our spring break trip to Switzerland, which had long been on our travel bucket list and Costa Rica, Colombia (Cartagena was a bust, but we loved Medellin and Bogota!), and Ecuador for our summer trip.

I must also mention the birthday weekend celebration my best friends planned for me in May as it was definitely a high point of my year!

Professionally, there were major changes for me in 2023. I started a new job with the Professional Learning Department in central office and I'm housed at two elementary schools. My first day of work was only nine days after losing my mom and it was a bit of a rough start as a result. However, my colleagues are wonderful and as I've grown into a position that is so different from anything I've done before, I'm really enjoying this new role.

The not-so-good stuff:

Losing my mom.

The most soul crushing experience of my life.

I'm planning on writing another post in a couple of weeks, so I'll save most of my thoughts for then, but all I can say is that I am not the same person I was when 2023 began. I tell people I'm fine and that I'm doing ok, but I'm not. I get emotionally overwhelmed very easily and as a result, I've been shutting people out. I don't want to socialize. I don't want to have to put on a happy face for people because obviously I have to do that all day long at work. The only way I can describe it is a feeling of being completely disinterested in just about everything. You know in the movie Inside Out when the emotional control panel just goes black? Pretty accurate depiction.

Now that we've moved into a new year, I am trying really hard to force myself to do things that I know will be fun even when I don't feel like it and it is definitely making a difference. I went out with two of my best friends this past weekend and I went to see the Frozen musical with one of them this week. I'm just trying to get myself back on track to live the kind of life I aspire to have and be the kind of person I aspire to be. I am so incredibly lucky to have the best husband I could ever hope for who has kept me afloat for the past six months while I have struggled to even put one foot in front of the other some days.

I have been reading and reading and reading about grief, and one of the things that comes up repeatedly is that it has no timeline and that healing looks different for everyone, so I'm doing my best to go easy on myself when things are slipping through the cracks. It will get better, that much I know. Until then, I am not going to beat myself up for how I'm navigating my grief. The people who matter to me have continued to check in and send me random texts and cute animal pics and funny memes and I am forever grateful to them for sticking with me.

I don't really do New Year's Resolutions, but I started something something last month that I have continued and will challenge myself to continue for all of 2024: I don't check my work email on my phone anymore. Back in December, I was prompted to enter my work email password on my phone and I just decided not to. I'd been having a rough day and I was just not in the mood to deal with it, so I told myself to forget it and just check my email the next morning when I got to work. Then I did the same thing the next day when I was prompted for a password. And the next, and so on. It has been great. Whatever the email is, it can wait. Does that mean that sometimes I get to work in the morning and there are more emails than I'd like to deal with first thing? Of course. But I haven't regretted for one single second not absent-mindedly checking my work email multiple times every evening and weekend. There have been a couple of occasions where I needed to check for a reply or answer to a question I had, but making the conscious decision to log in on my computer only when absolutely necessary has made a huge difference in my life. No more feeling annoyed by things I can't control or things I can't do anything about until I get to work the next day.

Good riddance, 2023 and hello, 2024. We have some fun travel planned for this year and if I'm being honest, looking forward to going away is what has kept me going. I was hoping as soon as the calendar changed to January, everything would be better, but unfortunately, that's not how real life works. However, little by little, it feels like the light and color is coming back into my life. It may be happening at a snail's pace, but it is happening.

this is my favorite pic from the entire year
because it’s from one of my favorite days of all time
#switzerland

Happy Tails to you!

It's Like America, But South! Day 4

Another beautiful day in Costa Rica! We did some more exploring, visited a beautiful park, took a hike through a nature preserve down to a river, had an amazing lunch, and today's highlight was visiting a butterfly garden!

Thank you for the very sweet messages and texts in response to my post the other day. I went back and forth about whether to share such personal details because I am not a person who likes to admit when they're struggling. The outpouring of kindness has been incredible. I've learned about the struggles of some of my cherished people who opened up about themselves after reading my post, and for that reason alone, I'm glad I decided to be vulnerable. I didn't write all of that in a search for pity, but rather to let people know that just because someone seems fine and posts cute pics of their dog, that doesn't mean they aren't having a hard time. I tried week after week to "be" happy and failed consistently; adopting Avalanche definitely played a role in me finding little moments of joy each day, but even he couldn't cure me. I had to be patient and tell myself the storm would pass and celebrate little wins and now, at long last, I'm certain I'm on the other side. I came across a teaching blog a while back and the author shared a poem that one of her students wrote: "Brave birds still fly through fog." To anyone who finds themselves in the fog right now, keep going.

One of the best messages I received came from a friend who said they had noticed me smiling more over the past couple of weeks and that I just seemed like my old self again. Even my mom mentioned that I was smiling more lately, and she is one of the few people who has truly seen me at my worst, so that is music to my ears - not only am I feeling happy again, but others are seeing it in me as well.

C and I are only four days into this adventure, but it has been transformative already. That's what travel does for me. It is my version of self-care. Some people like to get massages or watch Hallmark movies or meditate - all great activities! - but for me, travel is what has the most positive impact on my well-being. The quick weekend trips, the long road trips, the summer adventures...whether to somewhere new or somewhere we've been before, I just want to go. Even when it's uncomfortable and we don't speak the language and it's hard to find our way around and we don't understand the customs. Even when I almost get run over because the uber driver starts pulling away before I'm in the car (true story - this happened this morning!). Even then, I just want to go.

"If we were meant to stay in one place,

we would have roots instead of feet."

~ Rachel Wolchin ~

Happy Tails to you!

It's Like America, But South! Day 3

Today was lovely! We explored the city, checking out stores and shops, and went to a large market filled with all sorts of interesting things! It's been fun to discover places to eat throughout our meanderings and just take in the sights and sounds of a vibrant, busy place!

Without a doubt, the highlight of the day was taking a tour at the National Theater! It was fascinating to learn its history and as you can see from the photos, it is a gorgeous building! The tour guide was an actor, who was joined by another actor partway through the tour, and they were hilarious!

I always look for the Harry Potter books
in every country we visit!

Happy Tails to you!