16 Going On 17

Well, shucks.

Looks like I really dropped the blogging ball, didn't I? To tell you the truth, the first half of December had me in a weird funk. For no obvious reason, I found myself disenchanted and veering away from the siren call of blogs and Snapchat and Instagram. The days were moving overwhelmingly fast, so fast that I didn't even have the opportunity to savor that precious window of Christmas movies and twinkling holiday lights. Then everything happening globally, in Aleppo especially, had me feeling so, so blue. On top of all that, work was busy AF, my schedule was nonstop, yadda yadda yadda <insert 20 million other excuses here>.

But then I turned on my OOO auto-responder, landed in Seattle, embraced my family hello and all was good in my world again. I took it upon myself to master the art of hygge - piecing together a 1000 piece puzzle with my brother-in-law, curling up on the couch catching up on The West Wing, watching movies with my sister, and venturing out to the snowy suburbs with my parents. The spirit of the season finally, finally appeared before my eyes, and oh what a seriously magical Christmas morning we had!

Before too long, I was back in San Francisco, ready to greet the New Year.

Cassandra arrived in town, with a friend from Slovenia in tow who had never before been to California. And so as our final act in 2016 and our first act in 2017, we took it upon ourselves to show her all that San Francisco had to offer (albeit in the laziest fashion, I'll tell you all about that later). Seeing this city through the eyes of someone visiting for the first time, and explaining our lives to her was the perhaps the most fittingly reflective activity to do on the eve of a new year.  

2016...

well, it was somethin', wasn't it? Let's just leave it at that.

On a personal level, 2014 and 2015 were big, flashy years of traveling the world and fancy internships and college graduation and a first job and more traveling and my sister's wedding and moving into a big city. There was no possible way that 2016 could be as special of a year. But I'll give credit where credit is due and say that 2016 stands out as a year of settling into "adulthood," into becoming more comfortable with the real world. It was a year of evolution and adaptation and learning, learning, learning.

My friends and I welcomed 2017 in Oakland with the clink of champagne glasses and a view of fireworks blasting off on the other side of the bay. The next day, we did absolutely nothing except admire that same view in the light with lattes in hand, nap, and help cook a meal.
It felt like that pause between the release of an exhale and the drawing in of air that follows directly after. 2017, we're ready for ya! 
Apologies that my thoughts are so all over the place in this post. It just felt weird to blog again without acknowledging the end of one year and the beginning of the next. 
Cheers!