What I did last year
Reflecting on 2022.
Last year was an exceptionally busy, hectic, and tumultuous year for many of us, including me. However, last year was also an amazing year. Here’s a list of some of the things I (and my wife) did last year.
Moved from the SF Bay Area in California to Florida
Bought a house
Rescued a kitten
Rescued a puppy (lots of animals)
Spent lots of time with family and friends (most of them live in FL)
I flew back to CA to get a work thing done and to visit one of my best friends
My wife went to Disney World with one of her best friends
I ran my first half marathon, my wife ran her second (we ran the Disney Princess Half)
You get the idea, we had a good year.
Why move from the SF Bay Area to FL?
We’re both originally from Florida and wanted to be nearer family and friends. Since I’m lucky enough that my job was cool with me working remotely, we decided to move. Plus, soaring house prices in the Bay with comparatively cheap homes in Florida helped to make the decision easier.
We’ve already been able to enjoy many of the perks of moving back. We’ve seen our family and friends here more times since moving back than we did in the entire previous three years of living in California. The cost of living is lower, we’re nearer the beach than we were (I love to surf), and we have significantly more space and quiet than we did in CA.
All that said, I do miss the weather, beautiful vistas, amazing hiking, easy access to Lake Tahoe and many other fantastic things to do in California.
A kitten and a puppy in the same year? Are you crazy?
Yes. We rescued the kitten (now named Molly) off the side of the road and spent a lot of time trying to find a home for her as we nursed her back to health. By the time she was healthy and we’d failed to find her another home, we realized she was so bonded to us (and us to her) that she’d become our cat. The puppy (named Olive) was a more complicated rescue situation, but we did adopt her with the intention of her being our dog forever. It’s going well so far, but, with 3 dogs and 3 cats, the house can get hectic at times.
I feel very blessed to have had such an amazing year and to have been able to grow our family unit by two new animals. The start of a new year is a wonderful time to not only look forward at your goals for the coming year, but also to hit pause, reflect, and think back on the year you’ve had.
Perhaps you had a terrible year. If that’s the case, I’m sorry to hear that. I hope you can still reflect and carry lessons from the previous year with you into the next one, and use those lessons to make the coming year better.
I certainly did some things wrong last year and hope to carry the lessons I’ve learned with me to avoid making those same mistakes again. It’s a fact of life that even an amazing year, like the one I’ve had, will contain some ups and downs. The challenge is in embracing all of it and recognizing that each experience, good or bad or somewhere in between, has the potential to make you grow into a better person (as long as you put in the work).
Take a moment, reflect, and remember.