Planned 2017 vs. Actual 2017

My Planned 2017: soak up one last travel assignment in Cali. Return to FL in time for my girlfriend to start grad school and me to build us a tiny house. Finally be together, with a fresh start, ready to take on the next big things!

My Actual 2017: we broke up. Soaked up Cali life for an extra eight months. Florida Keys roadtrip with my mom. Smattering of unhealthy coping mechanisms that led me to a self-imposed 30 Day Life Detox and online therapy (betterhelp.com). Solo trip to Peru and my first ever trek.

I'm not going to romanticize the positive aspects of 2017 and say "this shitty thing happened but it's okay because look at the fun things I got to do instead." I didn't want those fun things instead. I wanted a life with who was supposed to be my person.

I've been thinking often of a quote from Cheryl Strayed's Tiny Beautiful Things:

"I'll never know, and neither will you the, life you didn't choose. We'll only know that whatever that sister life was, it was important and beautiful and not ours. It was the ghost ship that didn't carry us. There's nothing to do but salute it from the shore."

The Planned 2017, and the subsequent life that was to come, is a ghost ship I sometimes feel that I'll always be searching for from the shore. Some days I physically ache for it. There's no other way I can describe it. But like Cheryl said, that life was not mine to have.

So, this is me taking stock. 2017 really fucking hurt. 2018 is far different than I planned. I'm still stumbling and falling. But getting up. Healing. One breath at a time.