Twenty-Twenty-Deux-Over

Well, here I am again.  Writing an intro post to a blog that I’ve attempted to publish multiple times over the past decade.  I’ve had this plan in my mind for the last TEN years.  I’ve started and stopped this project more times than I care to admit, but here I am, trying it again.

When my dad died in 2011, two days before my 30th birthday, my priorities suddenly felt aligned.  Life was short, I needed a change.  Something to make my time here matter.  Something to feel like I had worth.  I suddenly knew all I wanted to do was travel and take photos.  That was literally all I wanted to do. 

I had started that plan earlier that year when I was invited to a wedding of a dear friend living in Australia.  I could even stay at their house during the honeymoon.  How freaking perfect was that set up?  I could hardly believe it.  Then life happened, well rather death happened.  And it was sudden and unplanned and surreal.  Every hour, day, and week after that just seemed to have a different plan.  I couldn’t stick to anything so I finally had to bow out, because it wasn’t fair to her to have a wishy-washy bridesmaid not be able to commit.  She handled it beautifully and understood why I had to step away, and I’m thankful for her and our friendship to this day.

As time passed I thought, maybe I would go back to school first and get a certificate or degree in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages).  I had met a few people that did that as a way to fund their travels.  Sounded like a great plan.  That turned into me moving back to Wisconsin, with my mother, and redoing the college years I missed while serving in the Coast Guard.  I tried starting the blog then but any adult whose gone back to school will understand the first few semesters are some of the most difficult and I put all of my focus on my classes.  I did land a job in the International Education office and worked in all of the departments as well as tutored in the ESL lab.  So I was getting my “fix” while not traveling or living my dream life.

After I got my Bachelor’s, I had the opportunity to move to Vermont and attend graduate school, which I did, and it was amazing.  My time spent in Vermont will be sprinkled throughout the blog as it became an immense healing place for me and will always be in my heart.  One of my housemates told me about a job he was doing at the State Department through the Pathways program so I applied and got accepted, and was hired to work at the Passport office in Northern Vermont.  After working there for a few years Detroit started to call my name to come back and so I did.  I packed up a U-haul, put my car on a trailer behind it and began what was easily the most adventurous and challenging move I’ve ever done on my own.  My stomach still twists and turns thinking about it.  Perhaps someday I’ll share that story here but it’s definitely better shared in person.

2020, the year the earth closed, and time stopped for us all, was the year I was going to finally do it.  I was going to start with a year of domestic travel, get to know the Mitten state, and get back into solo travel.  Of course you know what I’m going to say…it never happened.  I still work in passports and although my office did close for a few weeks that year, we ended up going back to work to help with the millions and millions of backlogged applications.  It was hard work but rewarding.  I got to know my co-workers better and seeing their resilience and strength everyday inspired me to do the same. 

I’m calling this year twenty-twenty-deux-over.  I’m going to start domestic travel again, starting with TravelCon at the end of next month!  Hopefully followed by a few trips around Michigan, and ending with either a long trip to the East Coast, or who knows, maybe overseas!  We’ll see what time and money allows.

I’m still working full-time while I travel and post here.  I have a lot of goals and dreams which I’ll share in the next post. 🙂

If you’re still with me, thank you.  Time is precious to all of us these days and I appreciate you giving your’s to read what I have to say.  Thank you for wanting to come on this journey with me!

And Bex, this one is for you!