A Traveler's Charm

I'm super late on my birthday tradition. I have a lot of excuses: 1) Taking care of tb, 2) Getting surprise after surprise after surprise by my loving family, 3) Spending quality time with family and phone conversations with friends in the days that followed, 4) Many ailments, including a COVID scare and the stress of isolation that kept me from wanting to do anything other than lay in bed, sleep, and fret.

I've been trying to organize my thoughts about what I want to say this year. The past year has been one for the books, to say the least. In just a simple list, without even reflection, I can tell you that it consisted of trying to get pregnant for several months (and being met with heartbreak with each negative pregnancy test), becoming pregnant and keeping it a secret for 3-4 months, crunch time with finishing my field study for my Master's, traveling to Iceland at the beginning of a pandemic, weathering a pandemic while still working, in school, and pregnant, an intense labor and delivery, postpartum recovery, and the fourth trimester.

But first,

Lessons Learned in my 32nd year:

1) Practice vulnerability, even with strangers. Socially, I've always seen myself as a bit of a wallflower, particularly in large groups of strangers and acquaintances (heck, even in large groups of friends). I thrive in one-on-one settings. However, these past couple of months, in three different social circles, I took a leap and bore my soul to a group of folks who I didn't necessarily feel particularly close to. I shared my story because I felt that it needed to be shared. The effect? I felt the group loosen up, open up, and become closer with one another. I like to think that I caused that to happen by being the first to jump into the deep end.