I did one of those word searches you see on Instagram, the ones that promise that the first four words you see will define your coming year. I squinted and had to come back a second time because one of Gideon’s favorite hobbies is taking my glasses off of my face, but finally I found my four words.

Change Strength Power Creation

If you’ve been here before, you know I usually pick one word in lieu of a New Year’s resolution. But for 2023 I got four, so I’m going with it.

This year was humbling in so many ways.

I earnestly set goals, worked toward them, and made absolutely zero progress. I felt overstimulated and overwhelmed. I lost my temper more often than I needed to. I learned what self loathing felt like, maybe for the first time. I did not love the person that looked back at me in the mirror every day. I was either completely unkind to myself or uselessly forgiving, and I struggled to find a middle ground.

And sometimes I felt hurt by people around me. I have learned more about boundaries this year than ever before. I’ve learned that if you love someone you should show them, not just tell them.

We were busier than usual this year and life felt chaotic a lot of the time.

But there were still beautiful moments—a year of happiness, health, and enough love and laughter that I look back at the last twelve months with gratitude and joy.

Rob worked harder than he has ever worked and excelled in his career. I secured a really exciting photography contract with a major client, which was so fun, paid well, and did wonders for my imposter syndrome. I came back to teaching Pure Barre in the spring and gained a new studio family, which I didn’t even realize I was missing until I found myself sending an email to inquire about getting on the schedule.

I spent time with old friends, made new ones, found a routine every other Thursday morning for coffee with babies in tow. There were Saturday morning playdates with egg casseroles and coffee while the kids bounded up the stairs to build a fort.

My mom got married, my brother is planning his wedding, and we are thinking about our 10th anniversary in the spring of 2024.

Gideon turned 1, Sophie turned 5. Gideon went straight from walking to running and is saying new words every week, Sophie finally got to start preschool and has best friends and a social life.

We traveled to California for the first time since we moved and Gideon got to meet all of our west coast family and friends. My heart was healed a bit coming back for fun after we left so abruptly at the beginning of the pandemic without really being able to say goodbye.

It was a hard year, but it was a good year.

So I look at those four words and realize that I need them and I want them. Change after feeling stagnant for so long. Strength because I have felt weak. Power in a world where I so often feel powerless. Creation because there’s an entire part of me that has felt shut down lately, and it’s time for her to come back.

Happy New Year, friends. I hope 2023 gives you exactly what you need.

Here we are again at the beginning of another year—2021 truly went by in what felt like a moment. I am happy and full of joy in ways I didn’t even know I could be, and still on most days I feel so deeply weary.

I miss traveling, and seeing friends without worry, and crowded breweries on spring afternoons. I miss romantic dinners in a candlelight restaurant, and impromptu drinks with girlfriends. I miss grabbing a coffee and aimlessly wandering the aisles of Target, or sitting down at a good table to write all day in a coffee shop. I miss picking Sophie up from preschool with a little sprout she planted in a Dixie cup. But more than anything I miss living without this massive anxiety, before the collective trauma of a pandemic and so many people whose lives were changed forever, and not for the better.

Last year I chose the word refuge as my intention for 2021; and rest, recover, and shelter we did. After a stressful six months and a big move, it took me some time to finally exhale and remember that we were back, and safe.

We furnished and decorated our new home; we unpacked and got settled and made it our own. We brought home a new baby and while there were months of sleepless nights, we enjoyed Rob’s generous paternity leave with lots of family time, slow mornings, cappuccinos, snuggles, stroller walks and strider bike rides around the neighborhood. There were popsicles and inflatable pools and naps on the back deck. And then, finally, there was hope.

As people got vaccinated, we cautiously opened our home and ourselves up to see more friends and family, trading our masks for hugs and six feet for weekend visits. As you know, the pandemic ebbed and flowed, and what should have (or at least could have) ended in the spring spiked again with more contagious variants. I felt anxiety unlike anything I have ever experienced before 2020, but to be safe at home and in control of our environment was something I tried to never take for granted.

And now as we look around at yet another surge, I realize that I can’t do anything more than hope. And I do—I feel genuinely, if not cautiously, hopeful.

Hopeful that better days are ahead. That the third year will be the final year, that our kids will have a “normal” childhood again and that people will stay vigilant long enough to get us all through this safely. Hope that the few things that are within our control can be enough. Hope that 2022 is a year of health, and happiness, and of piecing back together something that resembles the way we used to live before all of this.

Sometimes we have to cling to hope, because it’s all that’s left to hold on to.

Wishing you a year of only the best things.

Happy New Year

Hello from the other side?

I know that 2021 isn’t magically going to change the things we’ve been going through for the past 9-10 months but a fresh start always does feel good, even if it’s 100% theoretical.

In many ways this year did not deal me an exceptionally bad hand, and yet it still managed to completely knock me on my ass.

It started strong, with visits from friends and a nice long trip to New York that included a road trip to Virginia to see some of our favorite people. And then near the end of our trip, as we prepared to fly back, word of the virus went from nervous whispers to confirmed cases. We wiped our plane seats down with antibacterial wipes and made it home safely, hand sanitizer in our pockets.

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We pulled Sophie out of her wonderful Montessori preschool in March, only two months after she started. It stung because we had just gotten into a routine and she was loving it and I was finally not anxious about leaving her somewhere 3 half-days a week.

I stopped teaching at Pure Barre Palo Alto for what I thought was a temporary amount of time, not knowing at all that my last class at the studio would truly be my last class.

Rob’s entire company was told to work from home until further notice and we started dreaming about the possibility of moving back to Charlotte. It only took a few weeks, but it felt like years before his boss announced that they would be allowing some employees to transition to permanent remote positions, and I started packing almost immediately.

The entire transition took way longer than we expected, and living for months with the possibility of moving but no actual confirmation sent me into a really weird and negative headspace. Times of uncertainty and transition are always pretty hard for me, so I really struggled.

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Then I had a miscarriage.

We lay in bed for a few nights eating mint It’s-Its and watching Friends. People sent dinner.

Rob and I took Sophie to Monterey two times just to pick wildflowers. As homesick as I always was for the east coast, there is something so majestic and even healing in the face of the wild Pacific wind and waves. Seeing the coast always made me so happy to be in California. I stood on a cliff with Bixby Creek Bridge behind me, looked out at the ocean and breathed deep and thanked California for everything it had given us.

In that moment I felt completely broken and truly grateful at the same time.

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My hair started falling out. It was a little at first, and then a lot, and I realized pretty soon that my lifelong alopecia areata may be progressing into something more aggressive. When we get settled in Charlotte, I told myself, things will be easier.

It became a mantra, not just for my hair loss, but to get through the summer: heatwaves and a broken AC paired with landlords who did not care to fix a thing. When the wildfires came, the air was so smokey that we couldn’t open windows anymore and the inside of our house got up to 86 degrees every afternoon.

Things will be easier.

We gave our landlords notice, hired a realtor, booked movers, and planned a cross-country road trip. Ender went to a six week board and train program while we packed up our lives and purchased a house in Charlotte over FaceTime.

We drove to Half Moon Bay and sat in my aunt’s backyard with my family like we had so many times before, this time all at separate tables. We drank wine and ate one more meal together, saying goodbye with masks on and without being able to hug each other.

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One afternoon I felt a migraine coming on and took a just-in-case pregnancy test before popping my usual Excedrin. Two lines blinked back at me, California’s final gift to us before we left.

We packed up the dog and the toddler and drove across the country, masks on the dashboard and a box of snacks in the backseat. We ate a lot of fast food and slept in strange beds in every city. Some of the driving days were really long, but we got through it.

And now we’re back in Charlotte, still living through a pandemic but in a house that is ours, in the same time zone and within driving distance of so many friends and family that we hope we will only be able to see more of as the next few months go by.

If 2020 taught me anything, it’s that life can be terrible and wonderful at the same time. It’s beautiful and heartbreaking and stressful and joyful and totally worth it.

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Sending you all the light and love and rest and perseverance on this New Year’s Day, from me and Rob and Sophie and Ender and our baby boy on the way.