Happy 2024! My first blog post opened with a pic of me at work, and now you get to see me at work ten years later. I’ve gained some wrinkles, some pounds, and some prescription spectacles, but I’m still loving life.

When I first began this blog in 2014, I had no idea that I’d thrive in the UAE (I was so excited and so nervous), and that I’d also move to Belgium and then Guam. LOL I thought I’d be in the Middle East for two, maybe three years and then back home living the Arizona desert life (which I also loved). Now, I have no clue where I’ll end up next. For now I’m loving the island life, so all is well.

My only complaint is the same in every country: I’m so far away from my babies (and now their babies). And oh my goodness, look how adorable they are!

I’m so blessed to be surrounded by so much good (it’s balancing out the darker moments of my youth). 2024, for me, is looking to be filled with lots of visits. The grand babies and their parents arrive for a two-week visit January 24, then I have a friend planning to visit in April, one, possibly both, of my sons in May. In between all that are work trips in January and February, and then a fun trip to the Philippines in March.

It’s like Christmas every month for me! As for what I’ve been doing since the last time I posted: work (which I enjoy), Guam eating, sipping and beaching (thanks Barbie movie for making this a verb), and diving. I’ve mastered my fear of depth and have gone as deep as 125 feet (which is nothing to deep divers, but it’s deep enough for me).

I love the last day of the year because it always causes me to pause and reflect on what I’ve learned. Today, I’m remembering who I was in 2014 and where I am today. I am the same, however, probably a calmer, more stable me (some might disagree). 

I am also quite a bit wiser thanks to my following list of lessons learned.

• Fat floats: The heavier one is the more weight is needed to stay under when diving. My metaphorical soul sees it as the more we gain the harder we are to sink. Experience has made me more resilient — I know setbacks, no matter how drastic, don’t define me and they most certainly won’t ruin me. Plus, I like a positive spin to the extra fat in my life, so why fight it?
• Feed the hunger: In the past I starved myself avoiding what I wanted to do or learn because I thought I was too young, too old, too inexperienced, too whatever. Why do we do this to ourselves? It looks like toward the end of my decades I jump off the bandwagon and feast away: In my late twenties I married and built a family (my daughter came a few years earlier) and was amazed by how deeply I could love (um and later on that some loves are meant to be let go); in my late thirties, I packed up my kids and moved to a place where I had no job, knew no one, and, well, found myself reborn among the flames (thank you Phoenix); in my late 40s I gave up my dream teaching job to teach English in an Arabian school surrounded by so much uncertainty, and I am now in such a better place professionally and financially; in my late 50s I faced death (lol if only in my mind) to discover life under the sea, and now I want to discover more of what lives beneath our realm. God only knows what my late 60s will bring, but it’ll satiate whatever it is I’m hungering for (probably time to whip up some temptations for my grandchildren).
• Listen! Listen to my gut, to others, to everything around me. Most importantly, listen to that inner voice — the one I sometimes think is crazy. This one is tough because there are so many voices in our lives, all that should be heard (lol but not all that I’ll follow). I don’t jump into anything haphazardly. I seek advice, I google the bedazzle out of everything, I check and cross check, and I argue with myself. When I look back on my life, it’s when after all of that, I chose to ignore my inner voice, that I found myself in my worst situations. 
• Be a Pollyanna: I don’t mean toxic positivity. I mean embrace the light wherever I am, even when in the thick of shit. Hell, sometimes I’m a goth Pollyanna, enjoying the wicked while finding the good. Along the way I discovered that sometimes positivity is associated with being naive or too much of a dreamer or too kind. And, I mistook this strength as a weakness, but I was wrong. My cheeriness might annoy the fuck out of some, but it’s genuine and there is so much love and wonder in my life. Rose-colored glasses look fabulous and my view is so much nicer than Negative Nancy’s.
• Embrace the dark: There’s magic and growth here as well; I just try not to hug it too long. Hence my love of soothing lights and candles; they yank me back when needed.
• Accepting my momentum: I was going to write “don’t settle,” but to be fair when I was settling I didn’t at first realize it, and was it really settling when it’s what I felt I needed at the time? Then I thought I should write “give myself grace” because, like everyone, I struggle with the bits that are hard or what Ive done wrong. But, nope, the lesson learned is knowing when it’s time to move forward or when to pull back. This one might be the hardest of them all. There is always so much attached to this, and it’s never without stress, grief and cost. But, for me, there will always need to be some sort of forward momentum (and the occasional “holy shit back it up a bit!”), and when I avoid moving in the direction I need to, I wither. It goes back to feeding the hunger. I think I’m accepting the fact that I will always want to experience more (lol it’s a good thing I get excited over the little things too) — and that’s okay. I guess that my biggest lesson learned during my 58 years of living is that death is the only thing that should end our appetite, so if a job, a home, a relationship becomes stagnate (or feels that way) then there needs to be some gear shifting. That doesn’t mean that those parts of my life aren’t treasured. Oh my goodness I miss all of my pasts as much as I love what is yet to come. 

So, there’s more than you cared to read about what I’ve reflected on before toasting in the new year. How about I end it with a blast of pics of what my current every day (well today it’s blustery) looks like. May we all have a year full of sunshine, happy hours and rainbows!