I can’t believe that 2022 is almost here. This year has gone by pretty fast. I started 2021 with a lot of uncertainty. I was still separated with my ex husband. We didn’t file our divorce yet. We were together for ten years and there were a lot of good in that marriage and also the not so good things in that marriage. We tried to get back together in early of 2021 after being separated for almost a year and it didn’t work out. I’ve been working on my issues by being in therapy but clearly he didn’t. After the failed attempt to reconcile, I told him that I wanted a divorce.

We filed for our divorce and it was finalized in April 2021. While waiting for our divorce to be finalized, I got vaccinated to combat the covid-19 virus. I also volunteered at Oregon Convention Center to help people to get vaccinated. I remember the older ladies there told me that they didn’t see much of younger volunteers such as myself. They thanked me for my service and I told them that I should thanked them because they’ve shown me that I am on the right path with my volunteering and my passion to help with mutual aids wherever I needed. I want to keep helping people until I won’t be able to walk anymore.

I also completed my TEFL certification for 120 hours course. I’m certified to teach ESL for English as Second Language students. I was happy that I did this because I know that I will need to make some income while I’m traveling the world as a nomad.

In May 2021, I bought my one way ticket from San Francisco to Barcelona, Spain. The ticket was for September 2nd, 2021. It was a gamble in purchasing that ticket because I didn’t know how the pandemic was going at that time. I used 56000 miles and paid $0 for my ticket. It was a scary leap that I took. It was finally getting real. I started planning my trip. I started planning of when I would sell all of my belongings. Things are starting to feel real.

While I was busy planning my new life, I was also involved in the Recall Wheeler campaign. Portland, Oregon (that’s where I lived) is a city lead by the most incompetent mayor, Ted Wheeler. There are so many reasons why he is a bad mayor and I believed that Portland will be a better city without his leadership (or the lack of). I volunteered for the cause, continue working my 8-5 job, started to teach ESL online on the side, and planning my new life. It was a busy summer.

In August 2021, I turned 40 years old. I know a lot of people don’t believe me when I said that I am 40 years old. I want to thank my Asian gene for this one. I hope someday when I will turn 70 years old, I will look like I am 30 years old because apparently right now I look like I am in my 20s. My spirit is still in the 20s tho so I think that’s pretty accurate.

I left Portland on September 1st, 2021. I flew to San Francisco. I spent one night in SF and flew to Barcelona the following day. It was a long 12 hours plane ride, but I was so excited that when I landed in Barcelona, I totally forgot about my tiredness. I still remember that feeling of walking out of my Hotel and just walking around the Cathedral area. I remember how my heart was beating so fast because I was so excited.

I spent September in Spain. I spent the first week of October in Paris, France. Then I traveled in Italy for 1.5 months from second week of October until the mid of November. These countries captured my heart and especially Italy. I fell in love with the country, the food, the language, the people, the beauty of everything in that country.

I also went on fun dates with men that made me believe that romance is not dead and dating can still be fun. They are so different than men in USA (trust me I’ve dated in USA and it was not as fun as my dates in Europe). I fell in love with a guy that I’ve met in Bologna, Italy. We were talking online and decided to meet. We spent a week together and it was one of the best weeks of my life. We tried to continue the relationship after I left but it didn’t work out. Real life caught up with us and it’s not the same as that week we’ve spent together. I am still trying to get over it but I don’t have any regret about it. I cherish the memory that we shared together.

Time to say goodbye to Italy because my plan was to spend one month in Istanbul, Turkey. I rented an apartment through AirBnb. It was located by Taksim Square. It’s a simple apartment but the wifi was so bad. I had to get a wifi hotspot so I could work. That was a pretty interesting month because I started teaching again, continue to write, lost a friend to suicide, lost my cat because he was sick for a couple months, and found out that I couldn’t really travel to Indonesia to see my family because the Indonesian government changed their quarantine to 10 days. I couldn’t do that and also that will cost a lot because I will have to stay at selected hotels. Also the damn covid-19 virus mutated to Omicron.

I decided to travel back to Portland for the holiday and also to get the booster vaccination. My heart was broken that I couldn’t see my family in Indonesia but I knew that I wanted to be with my family for the holiday. Even though I am hating the cold, icy, rainy, and snowy weather, I am thankful that I am here. It’s not safe to be in USA right now tho unless you are completely in isolation. The Omicron virus is spreading like wildfire here. We had almost 500K covid cases yesterday as a whole country.

I am flying to Mexico City on January 11, 2022. I decided to explore Mexico for a few months. I will see a few friends there. I will stay with my Madrid Airbnb host. He moved to Mexico City for work and he told me that I can just stay with him. That’s the part that I love about traveling, people that we’ve met along the way, might be there for us when we need to reconnect even after not seeing each other or talking to each other for months.

2021 for me is the year of growth. I noticed how I changed throughout the year. I started the year with uncertainty but I am ending it with certainty. I am certain that it doesn’t matter how hard life can get, how much grief I endure throughout the year, I am still here. I am here not only because I am strong, but I am here because I have an amazing support system. I can’t survive this life without my family, my friends (old & new), the kindness of strangers, and all the cute animals.

Cheers to 2022! My hope is for all of us to stay healthy, be happy, and life our lives to the fullest. We only have one life to live, so we shouldn’t waste it away.