Shaking the Snowglobe

In college I was reading BJ Novak’s book of short stories (its called One More Thing, Stories and Other Stories), and he has an acknowledgement at the end that really stuck with me. He thanks two of his childhood friends, who he used to stay up all night writing jokes for, because they taught him one crucial piece of advice: always write for the kid next to you. In my case, that means writing for the people closest to me – my friends and family – some of whom are next to me and some of whom (mainly my entire family) are quite far away. So this one is for the kids that aren’t so close, I’m hoping it makes everyone feel a part of what is going to be an amazing month driving around, skiing with friends and having a blast.

I really don’t know what is going to make it in here! But something just felt write about making a blog. I’m hoping to write in here once a day, upload some photos, and bring everyone along. I am admittedly a little late though – my big trip technically started this past Thursday, February 1st (happy birthday Mackie!). So maybe for this introductory post I’ll give a quick synopsis of where I am, why I am excited, and where I am planning to go….

I labeled 2023 a “growth year”. There were many amazing moments, but plenty of difficult periods that sometimes swept me away in what felt like a double overhead Ocean Beach wave (something I’ve never actually experienced…). In the first half of the year I ended a relationship with someone who four months prior met my whole family at Christmas. It was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made, and the right one, but the emotional pain stuck around for a while. Meanwhile other pain in my body was popping up seemingly every week: an undiagnosed foot fracture from a giant man stepping on me in a soccer game, a mysterious and scary chest pain that stuck around for weeks caused by a scary sounding word called Costrochondritis, and a torn ECU sub-sheath in my left wrist from climbing overuse (plus a few bad golf rounds over at Glen Eagles).

My friend Dylan Farrell offered me a much needed distraction in late April: he was bringing his Grandfather’s 40 foot sailboat, Island Magic, from the Barbados up to Connecticut and swinging up through the Caribbean Islands, inviting friends to come for stretches at a time. I met him in St. Thomas and sailed with him, his brother Teagan, and our old coworkers Emily, Brendan, and Anna through Culebra, Puerto Rico, and landing finally in the Dominican Republic. From there I went to Medellin for a week, meeting great people, speaking Spanish and just immersing myself in an adventure. I came back to SF feeling amazing – I literally thought I could see arrows pointing me in the directions I was meant to go, a supreme confidence in everything I was doing. Cut to July – I decided to take care of my body and go through with a wrist surgery. I would spend the first five weeks at home in Greenwich hanging out in my wrist brace (and resting my foot, and chest), and then head back to SF in August. I was in a brace until mid August, and in physical therapy until late October. Being injured is a daily nuisance – having to explain the story of my brace and my massively inflated wrist, not being able to do the things that I love or keep me sane (I spent a lot of time on Alex’s stationary bike), and having to stay diligent with exercises so that the whole surgery was worth it in the first place!

Lucky for me, my family and friends are no strangers to staying gritty through injuries, surgeries, and recoveries and were constant sources of encouragement and support….most of their issues were also far more drastic or long lived. I remember a particularly mopey day I was having in our house in the Inner Richmond. I was feeling down on myself, tired from a combination of Covid symptoms + isolation, frustrated about my wrist, and insecure about living in a very nice, slightly expensive house – I’m young, shouldn’t I be living in a crappy apartment? My roommate Alex, after listening to me explain my confusing malaise about our new-ish home asked if he could give his perspective. “To me this house is a triumph”, he explained as he detailed his post graduation journey of bad landlords, subpar roommates, rat problems, and two hip surgerys.“Today I get to live with two of my closest high school friends, my body feels amazing and recovered, and the house is beautiful and in an amazing area of SF.” This moment, combined with one night when Zach (my other roommate) called me into his room and listed out all the ways he thought I was an amazing person because he felt like it would be nice for me to hear, inspired and energized me through the rest of the wrist recovery and rest of the year.

On my last day of PT with my therapist Alexis, we high fived and I biked home with a massive smile on many face. This feeling of having decided to take care of my body, gone through the worst of the process, and now actually not feeling pain every day was incredible. I could just look forward to getting rock climbing back with my friends, and golf back with my Dad. Thinking further on how much people had gone out of their way to be there for me was even more inspiring.

The positive momentum continued throughout October: I signed up for a writing class in the Inner Richmond, wanting to explore what writing creatively might feel like and more importantly, wanting to be in a physical space with some new people. I walked in and met the instructor, a kind, passionate and goofy man named David. Then the five women who would join me in the class entered and introduced themselves. They were all amazing and impressive to me, writing from completely different perspectives, backgrounds, inspirations. I actually cried while my friend Karima read one of her poems out loud for the first time in our final three hour class. And I felt on top of the world when I read my own piece and saw this tight knit group smiling, laughing, and crying themselves because of their pride in me (and my prose, of course). I felt such gratitude for that space and those people – its not that often you establish unconditional support and rapport with a group of strangers that meets up once a week to talk about whatever “Raw writing” means. Meanwhile, I decided to go in the Ocean once a day in October – running there, biking there, jumping in, swimming out along the cliffs by China Beach. My wrist was feeling good, I felt support from all angles, and was having an absolute blast.

Fast forward to December (Thanksgiving was amazing and so was a trip to Mexico City) and I couldn’t wait to get home and be as present as possible with my parents, sisters, brothers in-law, nieces, and nephew. I also couldn’t wait to golf with Dad at Olde Florida, pain free for the first time in years. That was the full circle feeling of recovery. The trip was amazing – from kayaking around the Rookery Bay Mangrove Forests in a tandem kayak with Rory (we saw the largest snail in the Americas!), to games of Codenames with Mackenzie, Brett, and Alyssa, to lighting off fireworks in John Fareri’s backyard. I looked back on the year and felt such immense gratitude for the supportive, fun people in my life. I felt confident that I was also interested in a professional change. So for my final act I started interviewing at new jobs eventually finding a role that matched how I wanted to spend my time – and more importantly surrounded by a team that I could envision myself truly enjoying and loving.

This brings me to this trip, and this blog. I submitted my two weeks in mid-January and wound up with a plan to rent my friend Venki’s car and drive from SF to Tahoe, to Utah, to New Mexico, to Colorado, to the Eastern Sierra, and back to Tahoe (or SF..). My final couple of days at Affirm this past week were continued rushes of gratitude. My manager, Faizaan, flew up from San Diego to take me out to dinner at Foreign Cinema where we spent three straight hours laughing – aided by a cocktail, three mezcal flights, and a martini. Lucky for him I don’t remember with immense clarity any of the company secrets he shared with me. The next day my friends at work said kind things (and roasted me), and sent me off with a happy hour. I felt encouraged, loved, and supported yet again!

That was last Wednesday. Thursday I packed up Venki’s car and booked it to Tahoe with Alex. Lucky for me, despite a pretty dry and disappointing January, we had the storm of the season roll through. Saturday was a blue bird, classic California ski day on endless blankets of powder. Alex, Nick and I squeezed into the first base to base gondola to make it up to KT-22 from Alpine Meadows and skied some of the first tracks underneath the lift to hoots and hollers from those riding up above. Sunday, Monday, and today were all unique and special in their own ways – its been a great start to what will be an amazing trip. I briefly considered spending this month abroad, solo trekking through Patagonia, or surfing in Central America. But something about a road trip through beautiful mountains in the US to see special people in special places seemed the proper celebration of what 2023 made me immensely grateful for.

I promise, the rest of the posts are going to be shorter and more fun. But this trip is nothing without the context of how I got here :). Here are some photos to enjoy that tell a better story of the year anyway:

:’)

So here we are! Feeling great, and feeling even more grateful. I like the term shaking the snow globe to describe those moments in life where we take the time to disrupt what our day to day routines look like. This gets harder as you get older, I imagine, so I’m hoping to shake it up extra hard over the next few weeks. If you’re reading this, I love you and am so happy and grateful that you’re in my life. You made this trip happen, and I hope I see you soon. Enjoy!