once upon a time it was the year 2012

and in that year I did not die. Though perhaps I went into hiding for a bit. Maybe I haven't come out yet completely. But I can't move on without saying something.

Last year was... not really a year. It was not one. A whole. A unified entity.

I think of last year and I feel I lived so many lives in so little time. It is a little scary. And a little hard to explain--being many people. And yet only one.

2012 started smack dab in the middle of my life in Spain. I rang in the new year with my Spain family in the living room of that house where I lived that part of my life. We celebrated with food and dancing and music and joy. Just a year later and it feels like an eternity ago.

The women of my Spain family!

A reason to go home.  (photo by Spencer Boerup)

A month later, in February, I was home. I was celebrating again. This time, the marriage of a dear best amazing darling friend. It was like being picked up and dropped, for a few days, right into the middle of a life I hadn't lived for years--my friends and family together again for the first time in more than a year for some of us. It was magical. And hard. And wonderful and frightening and short.



Within a week, I was back in my Spain life. Teaching. Traveling. Hanging out with friends and alone and living as if it was all normal and real. Dating and breaking up. Laughing and crying and just being. Until it was done. And there were goodbyes and endings and unanswerable questions about futures. As there usually are.

Half way through 2012. Just turned 25.
Florence, Italy.

I left Spain on my own. I spent my 25th birthday as a tourist somewhere in Tuscan Italy, in the middle of a new adventure that was, for the first time, mine alone. Post-Spain. Pre-NewTucson. I wandered through Italy and fell in love with the beautiful landscapes and churches and paintings and history. I drifted through Paris and was enchanted with everything, even though it was sometimes cold, even in July. I ate the best falafel of my life and entered the homes of great artists and felt like the very air there made the world and people and myself lovelier somehow. I decided that my next language would be French.

(I'm not joking, but I should be.) 

Dad and me at The Alhambra.
Granada, Spain.

Days later, in mid-July, I was traipsing through southern Spain with my Dad. Driving on back roads through beautiful countryside. Hiking through otherworldly rock formations. Floating in the salty sea waters of the Mediterranean. Trying to take it all in. But already being pulled into what was next.

When I arrived in Tucson at 11:30 pm on July 29, I was already scheduled to attend training for my new job at 8 am the next morning. In the most unlikely turn of events, I was already a teacher. A 4th grade teacher at a little charter school. And the next unbearably new part of my life had started.   right at the end of July. Without pomp or ceremony. Without time to wrap anything up or become (re)acquainted with this new home. What was had ended and what would be was already bulldozing a new path I hardly had time to consider before launching myself into it.

The last 5 months of 2012 were a blur. A terrifying, glorious mess. An education and a re-education. A new beginning. A return to the past. I still hardly know what to do with those months. They disappeared faster than my brain could take them in. I was home for the first time in 6 months or 7 years, depending on how you look at in. But really, I was in a new life and a new place, not even knowing the street names (anymore). There was no time to think or process, there was barely time to breathe. Luckily, I had my family. My friends. Such good friends! And zumba classes and running and great co-workers and funny moments and busy-good weekends. I even went rock climbing--a new love!

Then it was over.

Well, sort of. Because the year and the phase are not the same thing.

I still don't know what to make of 2012. Except that it is all a blessing. One more piece of my life. Of my heart. Of my soul. Of who I am and will be. Whoever that is.

With that, I wish you all an abundance of peace and love, wherever this crazy life takes you!
xo