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January 5th, 2022

Wow. What a year. It was one of the best years of my life, but also was extremely tough. I have a feeling a lot of people feel the same way.

We all started the year with hope, optimism. We ended up doubting our lives will ever get back to “normal”. We tried to ease our boredom and nerves with wine, binge-watching shows and hanging out in large crowds because we were over-it. Now, we’re facing restrictions as they’re brought back as Omicron and fears of new strains wait on the sidelines until their precursor has been vaccinated away.

Lucky for me, I had a distraction. I got engaged! It was magical and during the hopeful part, so we went ahead with the planning and wed in Nashville in October. No one claimed they got COVID from our wedding, but a few of us felt pretty sick afterwards.

We then went to Italy for our honeymoon. It was romantic, but exhausting. I carried around a folder of our travel documents – not the normal ones – but Health Declarations and print-outs of our negative PCR tests. I also carried around our physical CDC vaccination cards the whole time as they were required to enter the majority of places we went. The next-to-last day of our honeymoon should have consisted of pasta, trips to museums, shopping and Aperol spritzes. Instead, it was consumed by locating an Italian pharmacy that had travel-approved rapid tests that could send the results back to us in a short window of time that the airline required for us to board our flight home. It actually did consist of pasta, as well..but you get my point.

Holidays were looking to be a respite as cases were down and Thanksgiving ended up being a fun time, but alas, Omicron ruined the December holidays for some. We’re now required to wear masks again when walking into a restaurant, but allowed to remove when we’re 10 feet inside at a table. Sometimes I wonder what’s going on.

There was a lot of loss, as well. I know we’ve all felt it in some way, so while I say it was one of the best years of my life, I don’t take the loss lightly.

As we enter 2022, I urge us to try and find the hope we had at the beginning of 2021. Although, it may not have served us well – it kept us sane. I also recommend pasta in those moments we can’t find a silver lining. It actually does make things better.

Photography by Kimberly Graydon

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