Life

2016 was a roller coaster of a year. So many good things but also a lot of bad. On the personal front, it was a good year for me and my husband. Our family went through some tough times with health issues and some family passing but we pulled through and were able to spend a lot of time with them.

For the US and frankly the World, 2016 felt like a disaster…I’m not really going to get into it here on this blog because I’m trying to manifest positive energy in my life but if you’ve been hiding under a rock, Google it. I’ve been obsessed with all the news, especially listening to Urban View and Progress Radio on Sirius XM. It boils my blood and gives me anxiety.

Enough said, to focus on myself…I’ve identified the top lessons I learned from 2016.

1. Travel is an essential part of my life. We’ve still haven’t traveled internationally together (my husband and I – we were broke students for a long time and then worked happened and we just never made it a priority, which in hindsight was a mistake but we can’t go back now…) but in 2016 we made some fun trips and adventures together and with my family. We started the year by going to Monterey with my parents, sister and nephew and checking out the aquarium, he’d never been. We traveled to our second home, SoCal, several times and did a lot more exploration of the Bay and NorCal. Overall we had fun but we’ve been eyeing all the places we want to go and it’s a long list. In 2017, we are making it more of a priority.
2. Making friends as an adult is tough. I’ve lived in the Bay Area now for over two years and prior to that we were in LA two years and besides people I talk to at work, I haven’t made any new friends that I hang out with outside of work. It’s not for lack of wanting to or trying. It’s just tough and I’ve read about it a lot. I’m sure some of it has to do with my introversion but I just find that responsibilities, families and distance are tough to get past. I hope in 2017 we can make some genuine new friends.
3. Keeping friends is hard. Life happens, I get it, but distance makes keeping friends hard. I’ve moved around a lot in my adult life. After high school I lost touch with a lot of people, then I moved to San Diego and it was even harder to keep in touch. I made most of my good friends while living in San Diego for college but even with that group, when we moved to Pasadena it was hard to stay close. Since then, I still have a group of girlfriends but we hardly get to talk. Even my best friends are distant now. I don’t have kids but I notice, after my girlfriends had kids I lost touch with them. I understand but it still makes me sad to think of all the time lost, which goes to my next point…
4. Life is short and you never know when you’ll lose someone. This isn’t a new realization but it was a huge reminder this year, that life is short and you really have to cherish the time you have with people. My Uncle, my mom’s brother, died and a cousins wife who was near my age suddenly died of a brain aneurism. We had some close calls with my mother-in-law, my grandmother and my husbands cousin this year. It’s been a whirlwind on the health front.
5. Self care and overall health needs to be a priority. On the health front I have heart attacks, heart disease, strokes, HBP, diabetes, high cholesterol, anxiety and other health issues in my family so I really need to get my weight and stress levels under control. With my family history and my hope that I get pregnant this year, I want to make sure I take care of my health. I want to be in the best shape possible pre-pregnancy and I want to be able to effectively handle my stress this year. I’ve been going to a chiropractor regularly and plan to go to an acupuncturist too. It’s all about getting in tip top shape physically this year.

Overall, those were the big things in 2016 but in general 2016 was a good reminder that I need to stop wasting time and do it now. The underlying theme of 2016 was “the time is now.”