2024 Wrapped

You’re probably expecting another blog about the adventures I got to experience while traveling somewhere cool, but this one is going to be a little bit different. This blog is about the epic adventures of 2024. A year filled with so much heartbreak yet so much love and growth. I guess you could even call it an adventure depending on how you look at it. But anyways; this being my very public online journal, I thought I would cover the basis of the past year with anyone who wants to read about it. And if you don't care about my 2024 then stop reading now. ;)

2024 left me with more questions than answers. I began the year making one of the hardest decisions of my life. It left me questioning everything I knew about the future of my life and what I thought I knew about myself. Sooo even though my decision to get a divorce was the right one, it still brought forth more emotions than I could have ever imagined. Both positive and negative. After talking to friends and sitting with my own personal thoughts I think we put a lot of pressure on ourselves in our twenties to have everything figured out. We need to have a house, a massive group of friends, a family, a career, a love life, money, etc. But this year taught me there isn't a specific timeline that we should all be following. Its ok to make choices and then change our mind. We can think we are making all of the right decisions and then realize it's definitely all the wrong ones. Mistakes are ok and a normal part of life. Without mistakes we wouldn’t learn what really makes us happy and how to work through adversity. So, did 2024 begin with heartache? Yes. But I honestly wouldn’t change it. It helped me lean into working on self growth, taught me how to trust myself, and showed me that I can overcome difficult situations. I know I wouldn't be the person I am today without it.

Self worth. What does it mean to you? The google definition is, self-worth is the internal sense of being worthy of love, belonging, and value as a person. It's a more stable and global form of self-esteem than self-esteem, which can be inconsistent and based on external factors like achievements and successes. As sad as it sounds, 2024 taught me that I was kinda lacking in the self worth department. One of my favorite qualities about myself is that I always see the best in people. However, even though this is one of my favorite qualities it has resulted in a lot of pain throughout my life. I tend to see the potential of a situation rather than the reality. Small tip from the lover girl that I am; believe actions not words. This year was one of the hardest. Something that I had to realize is that loving someone harder, giving more of yourself, or doing more will not result in your love being recognized. You should not have to prove your value to the people you hold closest. This year taught me that no matter how much you may love someone, sometimes you have to love yourself enough to walk away. And let me tell you, it is one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. Remember; people make time for what really matters to them .. no matter how busy they are.

2024 also taught me that getting out of your comfort zone is extremely important. This year brought me jobs, situations, and friendships that made me uncomfortable. That being said, I am happy I put myself in the difficult situations. I’m glad that I gave coaching high school basketball a try even though I quickly found out the culture was not meant for me. I'm glad I tried new hobbies and activties even if I ended up not loving them. Getting out of your comfort zone is scary but it helps you break bad habits and ideas. Change can be good guys, so give it a try.. it might be exactly what you need! :)

Ok, now for all the positives. There were plenty of epic things that came out of the year.

For starters, I continued to build strong relationships with my best friends & family! This past May I moved into an apartment with my bestie Carson and it has been the best experience. Most people can't believe we work together, travel together, and live together and still like each other lol. This year I realized how important it is to poor love, support, and time into the people you care about the most.

2024 was also a traveling year. Every year I make a vision board and of course travel was on mine. I ended up traveling to two new countries and even went on my first solo trip. Side note, I would encourage anyone and everyone to give solo traveling a try. Check out my blog on San Juan, Puerto Rico if you wanna know about my experience! ;)

This year I also set an intention to grow as a barista and I accomplished it. At the beginning of the year I was able to go on a work trip to Florence, Italy and take a 7 day class on the different aspects of coffee. During the class I met people from all over the world that also have a passion for the coffee industry. This class allowed me to surround myself with other creative people which was inspiring and helped me grow creatively. During the class I learned about the history of coffee, the different brewing methods, the growing process, roasting process, and different barista skills. But the best part of the class was I finallyyyyy learned how to improved my latte art skills. I'm not going to lie, loving coffee but not being able to create the cute latte art designs on people's lattes was frustrating. Fruad alert. Lol just kidding but still. The teachers in Florence helped me learn the smaller movements of the different art designs and with lots of practice I improved and am decently consistent. You can actually check out some of my work on the portfolio page. ;)

This was also the year of fitness. As some of you may know and some of you may not know, health and fitness is one of my favorite things to do and learn about in the whole world. This year I was finally able to get back into running longer distances! I injured myself running a marathon at the end of 2021 and have found it hard to build up mileage pain free since then. However, this year I went on my longest run since at 10 miles and even attempted a ultra marathon in Ecuador! I am forever greatful to have running back and hope to do some even longer runs in 2025. I also joined a new workout class; Solidcore. Solidcore is a very intense form of pilates that is very challenging. Joining a group workout class was veryyy intimidating for me but I'm happy I did it. And lastly I became 8 months eating disorder free! I developed disordered eating my freshman year of college. A combination of bad relationships and running cross country and track at the collegiate level led to bad body image and the want to be smaller to be faster (which is not how that works). Ever since then I have tracked calories, restricted and binged, and could never get a grip on having a healthy relationship with food. This past May I decided to go cold turkey with no counting calories and I have stuck with it every since. My relationship with my body has improved a ton and I am now able to enjoy eating out with friends without feeling guilty. Food freedom is amazing and I'm proud of the work I put in this year to get to this point. I still have work to do but I am headed in the right direction. :)

Long story short, thank you 2024. Thank you for being a year of lots of growth & change! I don’t know what 2025 has in store, but I’m hella excited. I plan on slowing down to soak in all the happy moments, doing more of the things that I love, getting out of my comfort zone, and attempting to live a balanced life true to me! OH, and a year full of crazy adventures and travel of course! ;) 

See you next blog!