Reflecting on 2019, and Looking Ahead to 2020

Around the holidays, I begin debating if the year behind me was one of "the best" or not. More times than not, the year has topped the list with new accomplishments, milestones, and memories, and occasionally, I'll reflect at the end of the year recounting challenges, slumps, and periods of time that required more soul searching. As I reflect on 2019, it wasn't either - there were some amazing things that happened, and there were a fair share of challenges as well.

In 2019, I traveled to Costa Rica and Italy, two places that had long been on my bucketlist. While Costa Rica was beautiful, Tamarindo didn't top other tropical destinations such as Tulum, Mexico in my mind, and that was ok. I constantly find myself comparing places, relationships, things to one another without being able to fully appreciate something at face value. I look forward to going back to Costa Rica and exploring different parts of it in the near future. Italy surpassed every expectation I had. We explored Rome, Florence, Tuscany, Positano, Capri, and Puglia, and by the end we were so exhausted and fulfilled.

One of my 2019 resolutions was to get more involved with organizations that I am passionate about, and to give back more in general. In March, I had the honor of partnering with the St. Jude's Gold Gala in NYC, and at work I led our partnership with Smile Train, an international cleft palate and lip repair organization to help children globally. With Smile Train, I crossed off one of my biggest dreams of running the NYC marathon - a feat I never thought I would be able to accomplish.

With the amazing times came some challenges. At the beginning of the year I injured my back in a fitness class that I frequented often, which set me out of any fitness for nearly two months. While I've dealt with serious back pain since I was in middle school, I am always shocked at how helpless I feel when I re-injur it. Upon recovering and after spending 6 weeks vowing to appreciate and nurture my able body when I had it back, as fate would have it, I was given the opportunity to run the NYC Marathon with Team Empower. Training for the marathon was one of the most empowering and humbling experiences I've ever witnessed, and running the marathon was beyond my wildest dreams.

Around August, I found myself in a rut. I had had one of the best summers, and so much to look forward to in the coming weeks, when things felt like they were crumbling. Christian, Jonah and I had just found out that we were going to have to move 7 months before our lease ended, after we had already anticipated resigning at the lease end in April 2020. We loved our apartment on Duffield Street and I began to feel hopeless looking at our other options. At the same time, one of my clients that I had been consulting for since November 2018, had let me know that after a rough summer, they couldn't afford to work with me anymore. All of this happened within a week of each other and two weeks before leaving to Italy. I couldn't stop thinking of Carrie Bradshaw saying, "In New York, you're always either looking for a job, an apartment, or a boyfriend," as two of my three anchors seemingly were taken from me.

Right before we left to Italy, we found an apartment less than two blocks away from our Duffield Street place that was a dream -- floor to ceiling windows, an open floor plan, a 300 square foot terrace with views of Manhattan, and space for Beau to sprawl! We put a deposit down immediately, and as luck would have it, we moved in right after returning from Italy.

Year after year for the past 6 years, Christian and my relationship grows and matures in ways I never thought possible as sophomores in college trying to figure out how to pay for our ramen. We no doubt faced challenges and times that humbled us this year, but we also continued to grow, unveiled even more of each other's quirks, became more compassionate with each other, and had more fun in everything we did. I am extremely Type A and see that reflected in my relationships as being controlling or not being able to see why things are done other ways other than how I envision them being done. While that was a major realization in 2018, I felt like I was able to let go of some of the control I previously felt like I needed to have, primarily in my relationship with Christian. I embraced the ways that he does things and the ways in which he views the world, trying to learn more from him and be more patient in understanding that the ways in which people go about their lives is a creative expression within itself. While I still have my moments of utter stubbornness, in 2019, I became more vocal about what I wanted and began to trust the process of things more.

I start every year hopeful as we all do with an opportunity for a new beginning, but this year I’m working on building off of what I built a foundation for in 2019. I am finishing my intentions for 2020, which I see as overarching themes for the year ahead, and will post them soon, but I have also begun thinking about goal setting for shorter terms to achieve some of my longer term goals. In doing so, I have begun working on a framework to set ongoing weekly goals, monthly goals, and quarterly goals, never setting goals longer than three months out. This year one of my biggest resolutions is solving the problem of not finishing things, starting with my resolutions and intentions. In doing so, I created a framework of my top three pieces of advice for sticking to your 2020 resolutions.

Much of 2019 was spent toying with new ideas, exploring different avenues in my personal and professional life, and feeling out what I didn’t like even more so than honing in the things I am already attached to. This year I vow to spend more time with the things that I love, and saying no to the things that don’t serve me.