Did you miss me?

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m back! Work got a little crazy, and responsibilities took over. I’ve missed writing on this blog. My creative release is here right on this blog. Being unable to dive in here a late has taught me a few things. I’ve discovered that even though I live in paradise, I miss travel. The beautiful scenery in my backyard is not enough. I know we’re in the midst of a pandemic right now, and folks are discouraging travel, but my therapy (if I’m totally honest) is travel.

With all the chaos around me, I’ve been a little bit depressed. It’s depressing because I can’t really go anywhere. Now I know I live in a state composed of islands but traveling to neighbor islands isn’t enough. And for a while there, I couldn’t even travel to the other islands without a million and one COVID test or mandatory quarantine. I know it may be hard to believe, but it was just as much of a hassle to go to a neighboring island as it would have been to go to Mexico. I realize not all travel is easy, but at times I felt tortured.

When I sat down and truly evaluated my mental and emotional well-being, I realized the one thing that could be the best pick me up for me was getting on a plane. Getting on a plane to be with my family would help with the isolation I sometimes feel living in the middle of the ocean. Getting on a plane to relax on a beach that’s not right here in my backyard sounds fantastic to me. Now I realize for most my last statement may sound crazy. I’ve seen a lot of what my island has to offer, and I’m not taking that for granted, but I know there are more things for me to see out there in this big world we live in. It’s exhilarating for me to go to a new destination and experience what it has to offer.

So what I told myself was to map out these next eighteen months with travel. Find a new destination (or five) and plan trips to visit them. Hopefully, having these vacations on the calendar for the end of 2021 and 2022 will bring back that excitement I’ve been missing.

Yes, I know these are first-world problems, but 2021 and the effects COVID has had on the world was rough for me personally and professionally.