Holy crap, where has the year gone??? I truly cannot believe that there are only a few short days left in the year!
This year has easily been one of the most challenging years of my life. I’ve had more unexpected life events happen than I was prepared for and essentially ghosted all of you about halfway through my epic road trip over the summer. For that, I am sorry, and I feel like I owe you an explanation. (To those of you that I know will reach out saying I absolutely do not, I appreciate you.)
So let’s start with a brief recap of the first 6 months of the year, shall we?
I rang in the year silently suffering from one of the worst and most “stereotypical” bouts of depression I have ever experienced in my entire life. I cried all the time, showering was a struggle and when I did shower I normally just sat there for 45 minutes, getting out of bed felt impossible most days, and it felt like I was just in this perpetual state of darkness. It was truly awful and a form of depression I’ve never experienced before. But with the exception of my husband, I don’t think anyone had any idea how much I was suffering.
Thankfully, with the help of many visits to the ocean, I was able to slowly work my way out of the darkness and back into the light.
Then I had a pretty terrifying health scare. After about three days of the most excruciating pain of my life, I ended up in the ER and found out that I had a Bartholin gland cyst. This led to numerous follow up appointments that ultimately led to the discovery that I had something called CIN 2, which is a high risk form of HPV that could very easily turn into cervical cancer.
That craziness ignited this insane inferno inside of me and I spent every free moment I had learning about women’s health issues so that I could spend all of March talking about it and helping to break the stigma that we, as women, shouldn’t be openly talking about our bodies. The response I got (and still get) from those posts was astounding and helped get me back to my usual driven self.
Fast forward a bit to my crazy decision to build my 2012 Nissan Rogue out into a makeshift campervan and go on a three week long solo trip. It was right around this time that I decided I was going to start focusing more on Youtube, which is why this little corner of the internet kind of got put on the back burner.
(If you haven’t had a chance to check out my Youtube channel yet, you can find it here. Yes, that also got put on hold. We’re about to get into exactly why…)
About halfway through my road trip, I was feeling GOOD! I was working with a few incredible companies while I was on the road, more opportunities were coming in as I was posting about my trip, it was incredible!!! I was on cloud nine!
I ended up having to go to Chicago quite a few days earlier than I had originally planned due to some mislabeling of the campsite I was supposed to stay at and getting caught in tornado warning…at 12AM…while I was sleeping alone in my car…super casual. NBD. Lol.
Pass. Being woken up to the tornado siren while I’m alone, in my car, in the woods was absolutely terrifying and I immediately fled to Chicago where I would not only feel safe but I would also be surrounded by friends.
Well that sudden shift in plans turned into a somewhat blessing in disguise. About 24 ish hours after I got to Chicago I got a call from my husband saying that I needed to get on the next flight back to Boston because my oldest cat’s health had suddenly taken a drastic turn for the worst.
This had been my number one fear when I embarked on this journey. He had been sick leading up to my trip and I had considered cancelling it despite the fact that he seemed to be getting better. My therapist not so kindly said a couple weeks before, “What’s the worst thing that could possibly happen? That he dies while you’re gone, right? Is that really so terrible?”
Spoiler alert: Yes, it was that terrible and I have since broken up with that therapist 🙂
So that put a real damper on my trip. I literally caught the red eye out, spent a couple hours with the sweet boy that had laid by my grandmother’s side as she passed, brought him to the vet to do the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, and hopped on the next flight straight back to Chicago because I still had work to do. It was such a whirlwind that I honestly didn’t have time to fully process this huge hole that was suddenly left in my heart. That was a mistake, because I had to process it at some point and I’ve learned over the years that delaying feeling all the things never works out.
Somewhere amidst all of this craziness, I booked a ticket to go on a truly bucket list trip to the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador.
At the end of 2019 I decided that 2021 would be the year I would do a major bucket list trip. When I set that intention I was picturing Antarctica. For whatever reason Antarctica seemed far more attainable than the Galapagos. I thought Galapagos would happen when I was like 50 or 60…definitely not 27! But when Kellie, the founder of Adventurelust Travel, announced a once in a lifetime deal to go on an 8 day cruise through the Galapagos I immediately said yes!!!
That trip ended up being the most transformative trip I’ve had yet. I spent 18 days in Ecuador and from the moment I stepped off the plane I felt more grounded than I ever have in my entire life. I fell in love with the people, the culture, the animals (obviously), but most importantly…myself. I felt joyful and carefree; it was like nothing I had ever experienced before! Not only that, but while I was there it felt like a veil had been lifted and I finally found the clarity I had been searching for for so long! It was truly incredible, and I have a backlog of content and blog posts that I still need to get up for all of you.
But don’t worry, during that incredible trip of transformation there was still even more craziness going on behind the scenes if you can believe it! Mark and I decided in August that we were finally ready to make some major life changes.
We decided that we wanted to move to Chicago and that we wanted to be there by the first week of December so we could spend our first Christmas in our new home.
Yupp, we were determined to make it happen that fast.
We’ve known since Mark first moved back to Massachusetts from Chicago about 5 years ago that we would eventually end up back there. We always felt happy and aligned with our truest selves there, but we didn’t think we’d be able to afford it for a long time.
Well lo and behold, on a trip we took together over the summer we decided on a whim to see what the market was like. And by “see what the market was like” I really mean we thought we would just go to a couple open houses for $1.2 million dollar homes and dream about “someday”.
That did not end up being the case. Our quick research made us realize that the market in Chicago was actually way more affordable than we originally thought! We got in contact with an agent during that trip and immediately started the nightmare that is the homebuying process.
I won’t bore you with the details since I’m sure a lot of you are already familiar with how stressful it is to simultaneously sell and buy a house, but I had a whole additional layer on top of that normal nonsense.
While I was absolutely certain that this was the right decision, it still meant that I would be selling the only home I had ever known. Four generations of Zollos have lived in that home! My great grandmother, my grandparents, my mom, and me. That home is where my grandfather taught me to cook, it’s where I lived when I experienced my first heartbreak, it’s where I lived through all of life’s greatest celebrations, and it’s also where the most traumatic events of my life took place. To say there was a lot of emotional baggage attached to the selling of that house would be the understatement of the year.
Throughout an already stressful and emotional process, I also learned a lot of lessons along the way. For the first time in my life I reached a true breaking point. I couldn’t continue to be the strong one anymore and I had to let Mark take the reins for once. There were so many people in my life that doubted our decision every step of the way and did what they could to make things difficult. There were people who I loved and trusted, who I thought loved me too, that when push came to shove couldn’t be bothered to support me.
It hurt. More than I can put into words right now because I’m still working my way through the pain. I learned who my true friends are. I learned who my family is. Most importantly, I finally learned the somewhat cliched lesson that I need to release what no longer serves me and what no longer brings me joy.
But I also learned that while yes, I need to release what no longer serves me, doing that isn’t necessarily easy and that’s okay, too.
On November 30, 2021 Mark and I made our dreams and goals come true and closed on our new home in Chicago!
2021 has been a year of spiritual and emotional growth for me. I’ve learned to just lean into all the feelings and allow myself to feel them fully. I’ve learned to trust myself even more than I already did, which if you know me in real life is pretty incredible because I thought I already did a pretty great job at that.
I’ve spent the better part of the last 6 months doing inner work to work through some past traumas and limiting beliefs. I didn’t know that that work was really setting me up to handle more recent traumas, but I’m sure glad it did.
So I’m going into this new year still tender from recent heartaches, but full of hope. I feel like I’m tip-toeing back into myself after being shattered so completely, but I can see that there is more golden light ready for me in 2022 than there has ever been before.
For the next few months I’ll be staying put as I adjust to life as a Chicagoan, but my first trip of 2022 is already booked. In March I’ll be returning to my newly discovered Spirit Land, the Galapagos Islands, for a truly epic adventure that I’m excited to share with all of you! Fingers crossed this Omicron variant doesn’t make me delay it…Positive vibes only in 2022!
Happy new year, everyone, and thank you for staying on this journey with me!