(I wrote this the day before I was about to fly halfway around the world with a newborn, so I decided what better way to spend time than by not organizing and packing all of my stuff?)
2013 is going to be a year of profound change in my life, I’m sure of it. One reason (obviously) is that I’ll be figuring out how to adapt a little human into my daily routine. But whereas I knew that I’d be living in Kyrgyzstan for all of 2012 (well, most of it) and into 2013, I’m fairly certain that 2013 will be the year that I move away from Kyrgyzstan.
To where? Who knows. To do what? No clue. Farrell and I have been tossing around a couple (/several dozen) ideas, friends have been throwing out various suggestions, but as of now, we’re totally stumped.
Which brings me to my big resolution for this year: get my life moving again. 2010 was full of energy and ambition and inertia. Life was a whirlwind as I came back from Iraq, threw myself into DC life, planned my rock and roll wedding, and flung myself toward a country I had never seen before for a crazy idea. 2011 was marked by some truly unique and memorable experiences, like my internship in Dubai and being featured on House Hunters International. 2012 seemed slower and memorable in a different way. It was marked by the comfort of routine, and the anticipation of a different future. I felt like I spent the whole freaking year dealing with a pregnancy that might never end, thinking(/dreaming) of what life would be like when our first child would finally be real and out in the world with us.
I wouldn’t necessarily say that the ambitions have ceased, but our forward motion is keeping us in the status quo in Bishkek, and it’s becoming fairly obvious that Bishkek is no longer where our hearts want to be.
So that’s the big goal for this year, figuring out where our hearts do want to be. I’m not saying we’re going to search the depths of our souls to discover our dream jobs and lifestyles, because that’s a tired cliche. We are going to do a solid amount of soul-searching though, probably a lot of stressing out, and we are going to make some big changes.
There it is, no grand declarations of language fluency or long-term personal projects, no frivolous reminders that I should get a haircut at one point during the entire year, just a promise that things are going to be different by the time 2014 rolls around.