I was pushed to dark places in 2021 due to some challenging professional and personal situations. However, I did not simply survive them, I transformed as a result of the inner analysis and changes that occurred because of them. For the second time in my life (the first being my brother’s death in 2015), I was forced to dig deep and I came to the conclusion that I am much more than I realize or give myself credit for.
I didn’t do a yearly recap last year because 2020 was, well…. difficult to just get through with the COVID pandemic running rampant and changing the entire world and the way we lived. But I wanted to make a point to compile highlights of 2021 today to help me focus on all that I have to be thankful for, especially since I know there are so many people who did not make it and are no longer with us (may they all rest in peace). New Year’s Day is the perfect time to recognize my amazing life by not focusing on the daily stressors or issues that sometimes overshadow the great things in life. I recommend you do the same to acknowledge all the wonderful things you accomplished and were blessed with in the past year! It is also an opportunity to reflect on the things that can be worked on and improved in the coming year. Here are my 2021 highlights:
- 59 days (compared to 179 in 2019 Pre-COVID) traveling – all for pleasure since COVID is preventing any and all business travel.
- Even though COVID made travelling difficult (and international travel not really possible), I was glad to be able to somewhat get back to my passion of traveling
- Domestic destinations included: AZ – Tempe; CA – Bay Area, Lake Tahoe, Los Angeles and San Diego; HI – Maui; NM – Albuquerque and Santa Fe; NY – Manhattan/Brooklyn; UT – Kanab; WA – Seattle
- CONCERTS: Lane 8, One Republic, Counting Crows and Kristen Chenoweth
- EVENTS: The Bruery Anniversary Festival, Ren Faire, Rodeo Finals, 2 weddings, Hot Air Balloon Fiesta, CATS musical, SEAF, America’s Got Talent Live in Las Vegas(twice!)
- EPIC EATS: Antarctica toothfish caught 6,000 feet deep
- Sold my Houston, TX home and moved to Las Vegas, NV in January
- Published for the first time – 2 short stories in COVID Connections Book
- Two separate Service/Volunteer trips: both at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, Utah
If you want to see my year by month, keep reading:
JANUARY
6 days TRAVELING to Maui, HI
1/14-20: Maui Vacation
1/26: Snow in Vegas!
FEBRUARY
No TRAVELING
Worked long and hard pretty much everyday including some weekends
2/26-28: My best friend and her family came to visit in Vegas for her son’s 21st birthday
MARCH
No TRAVELING
Worked long and hard pretty much everyday including some weekends
2nd and last weekend: Friends came to visit in Vegas and BBQ’d at my apt
APRIL
No TRAVELING
Worked long and hard pretty much everyday including some weekends
MAY
No TRAVELING
Worked long and hard pretty much everyday including some weekends
JUNE
No TRAVELING
Worked long and hard pretty much everyday including some weekends
JULY
7 days TRAVELING to California: Los Angeles (3) and Bay Area (4)
7/4: Watched fireworks at Green Valley Ranch Casino and strip fireworks from the balcony of my apt
7/14: Visited Valley of Fire park
7/16-18: Los Angeles trip to attend the The Bruery Anniversary event on 7/17
7/28-7/31: Paul & Roz Lee Mill Valley camping wedding on 7/29
AUGUST
10 days TRAVELING to Kanab, UT (6) and NYC (4)
8/16-21: Volunteer trip at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary
8/25-28: NYC trip
SEPTEMBER
9 days TRAVELING to San Diego (6) and Arizona (3)
9/5: One Republic Concert in Las Vegas
9/7-12: San Diego trip
9/8: Counting Crows Concert
9/17-19: Arizona trip
9/25: 8 mile hike at Hoover Dam
OCTOBER
14 days TRAVELING to New Mexico (5), Los Angeles (5) and Seattle (4)
10/2: Cousin Sarah & Tyler’s Wedding in Las Vegas
10/5-9: New Mexico trip to attend Hot Air Balloon Fiesta, visit Alpaca farm, and go to 2 natural hot springs resorts
10/13: CATS musical in Las Vegas
10/16: Renaissance Faire in Las Vegas
10/21-25: Los Angeles Trip to celebrate my best friend’s birthday by taking 45th birthday pictures at the Huntington Library Botanical Gardens
10/28-11/1: Halloween trip attending SEAF in Seattle and going to Sammamish Animal Sanctuary and Kubota Japanese Garden
NOVEMBER
3 days TRAVELING to Seattle (1) and Kanab, Utah (2)
11/1: Seattle trip
11/3: Being published for the first time with 2 of my short stories within the COVID Connections book
11/5-6: My best friend came to visit to celebrate my birthday
11/19: America’s Got Talent Live Las Vegas show
11/21: Candlelight Songs from Magical Movie Soundtracks string quartet concert
11/29-12/3: Volunteer trip at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary
DECEMBER
10 days TRAVELING to Kanab, UT (3), Tahoe (3) and Los Angeles (4)
12/1-3: Volunteer trip at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary
12/8: National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas
12/17-19: Lake Tahoe trip
12/24-27: Los Angeles Christmas trip
12/30: America’s Got Talent Live Las Vegas show
12/31: Kristen Chenoweth NYE concert
Random reflections: The first half of the year was spent working hard. And when I say hard, I mean harder than I ever have in the ~20 years I’ve been at Cisco. For those of you who know me well, I’ve worked my a$$ off many a time throughout my career, but I had never felt so stressed out and constantly at the point of wanting to simply give up. My manager left the company fall of 2020 and I was forced to take on the manager role for my team (never having any aspirations to be a manager whatsoever) while trying to negotiate almost 20+ different state government contracts during a worldwide pandemic, without a promotion or pay raise I might add. Saying it was the most challenging time of my career is an understatement since I was easily working 15+ hour days and most weekends, struggling to develop my skills, knowledge, and experience to be successful in this new role. Since this work schedule started in late-2020 and lasted through mid-2021, without the ability to travel constantly, which was my way to destress, I was absolutely burned out! Because my mind was constantly running thinking about all the things I needed to get done, I was barely sleeping 5 hours a night and had no energy or desire to do anything else. My life consisted of working, eating badly and sleeping even worse. I honestly had never felt so miserable and came to the point that I didn’t see the point of life anymore.
Luckily through my determination, along with supportive leadership and my highly effective team, all the contracts were done (except for one that is still under negotiations) and I finally reached the end of the tunnel where I eventually got a promotion, raise, and a less intense work schedule! This challenging professional development experience reminded me that no matter what task is put in front of me, I have always been able to succeed because of my patience, perseverance, ability to adapt, change and grow as well as my drive to succeed. This experience forced me to ponder what makes me happy in life from a professional standpoint. While it is very clear to me that contracts is NOT my passion, I still found myself uncertain what is. I wondered once I figured it out, if it is something I could actually make a career and living from. I knew that I needed to focus on something that makes me happy as I continued in my manager role if I were to stay sane, with the realistic expectation that it may not be something I can make a living off of and that I would still remain at my current job.
Writing is something I have always enjoyed doing. It is one of a few things that once I start, I can literally spend hours and hours doing easily, losing track of time. But like with this blog, I have never been consistent and have not truly put any real regular effort into doing or developing my skills. To push myself out of the dark place I was in early 2021, I had started to refocus on writing since it was one outlet that relieved some of my stress and made me happy. For the very first time in 2020, I tried writing a few fiction short stories and submitted them for a contest to get published in a short story compilation book. Surprisingly, all 3 of my submissions were selected. I regularly followed up with the publisher to find out the status of the book and she was hitting several snags making it seem uncertain if the book would actually get published. In efforts to destress while working on my writing skills, I tried rewriting and editing those stories. When I reached out to the publisher with the updated versions, because of my regular status requests, I found out it was too late to update my stories since she already edited and was in process of formatting the book for final publication. Realizing that I would soon be a published author, I told myself I need to get back to it and really make an effort. Being published just days before my birthday is one of the proudest moments of my life because I knew I accomplished something I had once only dreamed about. 2020 was the very first time I even tried writing fiction and I honestly didn’t spend much time developing those stories because I had the “Let me just try it real quick” casual attitude. I can only wonder what I can achieve in the future if I put real effort and consistent time into developing my writing skills.
This blog was initially started years ago to figure out what I’m passionate about. Obviously I haven’t put all that much effort into it since its inception. In 2021 I came to the conclusion that I can’t truly figure my passions out if I don’t even really know who I am. It may have been a midlife crisis, but I suddenly felt a burning desire to deep dive to figure out who I am. I started looking into astrology and didn’t realize there was a whole world beyond the simple astrological sun sign and that one’s natal/birth chart should be analyzed to really figure out one’s full astrological profile. I also started getting into astrology focused tarot and watching YouTube readings for guidance. Those tarot readings opened me up more into astrology as well as numerology. I also went back to personality tests I had taken in the past to understand aspects of my character better. I realized, after beginning to dip my toes into all these subjects, that I never took the time to understand myself. This is another thing I want and need to invest my time and effort into.
After being challenged with work, which initiated the self-introspection journey, I couldn’t help but question what makes me truly happy so I started to evaluate other areas of my life. This effort was reinforced by various tarot readings that all had the same message: Let go of that which does not serve me. Aside from career, home and relationships were the other areas I began to think about.
Starting with home, I know the decision to sell my house in Houston, which caused me stress from needing to constantly fix it costing most of my free time and of course money, to move to the Las Vegas area was the right decision. For the first time, I had a place I could comfortably call home, something that I didn’t feel living in California, New Jersey or Texas. I realized how much I felt at home in my new apartment when I enjoyed staying there and didn’t feel like I was going totally crazy from not traveling every week as I used to. I realized before, that aside from loving travel, I traveled so much because I didn’t enjoy being home in the first place. When I traveled in 2021, I looked forward to ending my trip so I could go back home, which is something I never felt before. Even though there were many things that constantly needed fixing in my apartment for several months upon moving in, I didn’t have the stress of having to fix and pay for everything myself, which made all the difference. I love my apartment, complex, and convenience, newness, walkability and safety of the neighborhood and city I am in, which is the first time I have ever been able to say all that about any place I lived.
With regard to the relationship aspect of my life, I was not entirely happy in the open relationship that I had been in for many years. Because of what I went through in early 2021, I began to change as a person and what I wanted in a relationship changed along with it. Then I simply knew I could not continue the open relationship I was in when I started to develop feelings for another man because what I wanted in a partner and in a relationship was changing. Since the person I began to fall for was a friend of the person I was in the open relationship with and the way I tried to end the relationship, it was far from an easy or clean breakup. The emotional roller coaster we went through was intense because of the varied range of emotions involved. I somehow subsisted on less than 4 hours of sleep daily for a few weeks trying to navigate the end of the relationship. It was during that time I discovered who my true friends were in the process. I lost people in my life because of the major decision I made ending one relationship to pursue a chance to be with a man who I believe will make me happy. While only time will truly tell if this relationship is right, I absolutely do not regret the actions I took to pursue my happiness because for once, I was courageous enough to let go of what no longer was serving me and followed my heart to something that is bringing me happiness.
So, to 2021, I say: You brought me to the brink of my limits to some of the darkest places I never thought I’d end up in, much less come out of. I do truly thank you for all the hell you put me through because I realize I am even stronger and more resilient than I thought I was capable of. Through these challenges you pushed me to confront myself, my wants, needs, wishes, and desires. Like a phoenix, you forced me to rise up from the ashes of the person I used to be and the new me has emerged with more clarity, focus, hope and a burning fire within to grow, change and develop even more to manifest my wildest dreams.
GGibberish 