What 2022 meant to me

Can you believe another year is over just like that? And as the first year (virtually) covid-free, you'd think I'd have nothing but good things to say about it. But actually 2022 has been a very up and down year for me. It's the year I expected all my dreams to come true. And yet at times, it was more like a nightmare come to life. 

It's been a weird old year to be completely honest. It's been a year of extreme highs and gut wrenching lows. Seeing as no one likes a debbie downer, I thought I'd make this year's end of year blog post a balanced one, all about what 2022 taught me and what the year has meant for me.

A year of travelling the world

2017 is the year I'd say I really caught the travel bug. I suddenly discovered the art of going on cheap European city breaks with very few annual leave days and ever since then, the bar has been escalating higher and higher in the travel department. I was convinced 2020 would be my best year yet when making plans, but then covid hit. 2021 was a pretty impressive year, despite half of it being written off due to lockdowns. But 2022 has to take the crown. Travel has well and truly been back on the table and I've been making the most of that in a BIG way. 

Mexico with Ollie in January. Last minute baecation to Turin in February. Birthday trip (his) to Dublin in March. Family knees up in Cologne in April. Lisbon with Ollie in April/May. Mother daughter time in Palma in May. Birthday celebrations (mine) in Montenegro in June. Long overdue girls trip to Marseille in July. Hot girl summer in Greece with Laura in July. 24 hours in singapore with my family in September. The second leg of the September trip; exploring Thailand with Phuket and Elephant Hills. Roma with my Laura in October. Winter sun in Morocco in November. And finishing up December in Los Angeles to ring in the New Year. 

I highly doubt anyone is second guessing how blessed I am or how committed I am to seeing every inch of this beautiful planet we call home. 2022 was a year where I ticked off 5 new countries, many new destinations, and went on a total of 13 holidays (2 of them twin centre). Whenever someone questions why I don't want to settle down and have children, this is the passage I'll read them. Because when your life is like mine, why would you want to trade it for anything else?

A year of everything falling apart so better things could come together

You should know by now that I'm a fatalist. I believe in destiny, in serendipity and in the idea that everything happens for a reason. In fact, it goes beyond that. I believe everything happens as it's meant to, and I don't believe there's any escaping your fate. Which interestingly brings me a lot of reassurance, because my heart is at peace knowing that what's meant for me won't miss me, and what misses me wasn't meant for me.

A sentiment fairly easy to believe in when your life is blessed and you have a good job and a loving family and you go on millions of awe-inspiring holidays. But what about when your faith is tested? What about when everything goes wrong?

It's safe to say that 2022 was the year that tested me. I thought I'd been tested over the last couple of years what with lockdowns and job struggles and mental health dips. But the universe said to me 'you ain't seen nothing yet' when it sent me the 2022 programme.

Firstly, I was miserable in my job. And not like I've ever been miserable before. I've had jobs where I've been underpaid, where I've felt under excited, where I've felt spoken over. But never before have a I felt a lack of purpose, a lack of value and a lack of belief in myself like I did for the first half of this year. Working somewhere where they didn't have anyone else in my department to bounce ideas off, and where my contributions were very scarcely glanced at, let alone valued, led me towards feeling de-motivated, uninspired and ultimately stuck in a rut.

Secondly, my health took a nose dive. I don't think I've ever explicitly spoken about it on here, whether due to embarrassment, prudishness or a desire to keep my private life private, but I've had ulcerative colitis since I was 11 years old. I spent 3 months in and out of hospital that summer, I was nill by mouth, my face ballooned up to the size of the moon due to the steroids I was on and the trajectory of my life would be forever changed, no longer a "normal" pre-teen girl, but one more used to speaking to doctors and surgeons than kids her own age. Medication managed to keep my condition under control (surgery avoided) for 5 blissful years, before I was brought off one of my tablets and fell ill again pretty soon after. 

If I thought being a "sick person" at 11 or 12 years old had been a rough ride, nothing could've prepared me for how much worse it was at 17. When you're trying to get your a-levels that will map out the rest of your whole life, and you're wanting to have somewhat of a normal slutty stage without the need for explainers or gritty details, and you're trying to hold down your first job without weeks out at a time, and you're dealing with all of the regular teenage angst without the need for extra problems piled on top. The cherry on top of the cake has to be that I spent the run up to Christmas, Christmas day, and New Years in hospital on a children's ward I was blatantly too old for, while local footballers came round to hand out toys and pity while I simply died of embarrassment in my bed.

Since then it's been pretty plain sailing, and I guess I'd began to take life as a healthy person for granted. I got a bit twitchy around the 5 year mark when I turned 22, since that'd been my "well" gap before. But since then, I've barely given my illness a second thought, other than the 11 tablets I take every morning to keep it in check.

Well, that neglectful and idle thought process certainly bit me in the bum this year, as I had another flare up. It's weird (and literally horrible) how quickly you forget what it's like to be healthy. How quickly you forget what it's like to take the little things for granted and how immediately you feel right back where you were 8 years ago, and 5 years before that. My bowel being removed is a risk I've lived with for more than half of my life, and it's a fear that's always been there. My health troubles this year sadly brought that fear right back into the foreground.

Think all that would've been enough to challenge a person? Well, the universe evidently thought I needed a little bit more. As thirdly, my love life took a trip off a cliff. Ollie and I hit the rocks and we took a break over the summer, meaning I moved out of our house for a while and went to stay with my mum and dad. I'm sure a few of you more eagle-eyed readers noticed the lack of baecations and date nights.

It was obviously really hard and I've never known heartbreak like it. But my faith in the power of the universe remained stronger than ever. I knew that if he was meant for me, we'd figure it out. And if we didn't then it'd be for the best. And since I've captioned this section "A year of everything falling apart so better things could come together"; I'm sure you can guess which way it went...

6 weeks later, Ollie and I were back together, I was back at home and we were back working on our relationship. Arguably, we were back stronger, as we'd had time to evaluate our problems at a distance, and we were soon back to planning all manner of lovely trips, holidays and fun activities. And it wasn't long before everything else started falling into place too.

With shear pig-headedness on my side, I was absolutely determined that this year's colitis flare-up wouldn't result in a hospital admission. So with the help of new medication, some lifestyle changes (I waved goodbye to caffeine, so no tea, coffee or espresso martinis!), and a super supportive network of people I love more than anything, I got my illness back under control.

They say that luck comes in threes and while my bad luck this year was aplenty, the universe was quick to present me with the solutions to my problems too. In fact, it was actually the same week that I moved back home to Ollie, that I also started in the new job that I'd been working towards all summer.

My job at edays is one that I'd been excited by since I first heard about the company and with fate playing a hand (I didn't get the job I initially applied for; but I got the one that was meant for me as far as I was concerned), I'm the happiest I've ever been in my career.

Not only did I manage a pay rise, a perfect hybrid set up and the ability to travel to cool events, but most importantly I feel valued, mentored, respected and challenged. Basically the exact opposite of how I felt at the start of the year. So in yet another area of my life, the universe found a way to break things apart so that better things could come together in 2022.

A year of carpe diem

My struggles this year weren't all bad though (can you tell I'm an optimist?). For all the pain and anguish they brought me, they also reinforced some pretty great idealogies of mine.

Like my desire to seize the day (or carpe diem, as the Romans would say). Honestly, what is the point in saving a nice outfit for "something special" or in squirreling away all your money in case of a rainy day, or doing something "one day" rather than planning it as soon as you can?

Life is so short. You should do the things you want to now, rather than at some point in the undefined future. 2022 has taught me that money is much better spent enjoying yourself and creating forever memories, than sitting in a bank. And plans should be pinpointed in the diary with a date to them, not mentioned in passing as "something you'll have to do".

Because who knows what's around the corner? Maybe your health will take a nose dive or your job will go terribly wrong or you'll find yourself without the one you love. You have to do things while you're young and dumb enough to enjoy them to the max.

A year of believing in myself

It may shock you to hear that I'm a pretty confident person. In fact, I'd go as far to say I'm a very confident person. Anything you can tell me about myself is either something that can't hurt me because I already know it to be true, or that can't hurt me because I know it to be false. And yet, the first half of this year had me questioning how good I was. How worthy.

Thankfully, that emotion has come full circle. Thanks to 2022, I feel more sure of myself than ever before, and I regularly get a warm glow when my ideas and strengths are validated by others. Because they're backing up what I always knew (and was sadly made to question); that I'm the shit. I'm fabulous, I'm great at what I do, and I'm loved. If you can take any lesson from my 2022 it should be that you are too; and what a great mindset to go into a new year with.

2023

I'm pretty excited about 2023, not because I feel that it'll be a year of new beginnings. But because I've already had my year of new beginnings and I feel it's laid the groundwork for me to truly fly in 2023. I'm so excited about what the new year may hold, but let's not be hasty. First, it's time to review how we did in 2022.

1. Take better care of my skin

Like so many things this year, this resolution royally bit me in the arse. My skin was doing just fine on its own and yet I had a complex that I wasn't taking good enough care of it. So I started doing a regular skincare routine, and applying SPF every day and guess what? I developed dermatitis. So my skin literally became allergic to me taking care of it! So much for new years resolutions, next time I'll learnt to leave well enough alone.

2. Reduce screen time

Did I achieve this? I want to say yes, as I feel like I certainly reduced the screen time levels on my phone, and I definitely watched less TV. But I just replaced it with more going out drinking and spunking loads of money. Is that a healthier habit? Probably not. So can I really say I achieved much with this resolution? Computer says no.

3. Learn French and Spanish

I set out with the best of intentions with this one. I downloaded duolingo, I had a monster session on both French and Spanish, and I booked holidays to countries speaking each language. Aaaand that was all she wrote. That's as far as I got. Even duolingo gave up on me after countless ignored daily app notifications. Oh well - God loves a trier.

So after a pretty disastrous year and a disastrous string of resolutions to reflect that nicely, where does that leave me going into 2023? Well, for starters I'd say it's time to come up with some easier resolutions. I don't want to give up entirely on the premise of setting any so let's see how we get on with the following...

1. Learn French and Spanish

I now have the app, so let's see if a bit of a perseverance can't get this one ticked off the list. And if not then I'll give up next year!

2. Recommit to getting the house sorted

I had a burst of motivation when Ollie and I first moved in together, and yet my drive to make our house the loveliest it can be has somewhat waned since then. So this year, I'm determined to get back on it, and transform my less favourite parts of our house like the fairy godmother.

3. Get back on it with my blog

We're going in to year nine of Jenni from the block now and I have to say that the busyness of life combined with a dip in inspiration has seen this year become my worst yet on here. Even holiday blog posts are taking me like a month to write! In 2023, let's see if I can get back in a rhythm with it.

4. Visit more than 5 new countries

I've had a string of fabulous years of travelling, post-pandemic. In 2021 (despite the lockdown-ish start), I visited 5 new countries, and in 2022, I visited 5 new countries (as well as returning to some others). In 2023, I'm going to see if I can beat that record and tick more than 5 new countries off the bucket list.

There's also all the stuff I assume you know is a given with me by now; continue to travel the world, continue to have amazing experiences, continue to plan wonderful fun things, continue to spend my time with the people that mean the most, continue to climb the ladder in my career and continue to live the best life I can possibly live. Because if 2022 has taught me anything, it's that that's what it all comes back to.