Pete and I briefly caught part of one of the NYE shows last night, and there was clip after clip of Barbara Walters saying, “This is 20/20.”  I didn’t make the connection right away.

Then I started writing this post and I thought about hindsight being 20/20, and I realized that there are probably going to be a lot of poignant and punny references to the current year.

Which I keep writing/saying as 2010, for some reason.

Even for someone who doesn’t generally relish change (me), a new year represents a chance to do things better and to reflect on what happened – and what was done – in the last year.  Among Pete’s 2019 highlights was his struggle with debilitating vertigo, which he continues to be reminded of when things just don’t feel as steady as they used to.  For both of us, me moving to Asheville was a significant event.  It was a change to our relationship that had become long-distance; it was a change of my job and to many relationships I had in Charlotte; and it was even a change to some of Pete’s Charlotte relationships in that there are people we won’t see as often in Charlotte because more of our time is now spent in Asheville.  We miss our queen city, but we love the mountains.

For me, 2020 is a good opportunity to put the agony of 2019’s change behind me.  2019 was half a year leading up to leaving a job I’d held so long and moving away from Charlotte and back to Asheville – so, half a year of anxiety, planning, worry, goodbyes – and then half a year of mourning that change and trying to embrace my new life while learning a new job, new routines, new places.  (Or sometimes, being happy to return to old places I hated leaving behind in 2005.)  I think I spent the last half of 2019 throwing spaghetti at every relationship I have to see where it sticks.  Does Charlotte remember me?  Does Asheville welcome/remember me?  What about this group family chat…what kind of response do I get there?  What about this husband I’m moving back in with…how are we getting along?  What about my sister and family I’m now 3 hours away from and now I can’t go to the nephews’ sporting events or have a random Schwesti Day?  Do I need a therapist in Asheville, or can I just see my therapist in Charlotte sometimes?  Will I love my doctors in Asheville as much as the ones I have to leave in Charlotte?  I’ve definitely been searching, and it hurts, and it reminds me far too much of insecure growing pains I thought I left behind in high school…college…my 20s…

But, it’s me.  It’s me who always shows it and knows it when I love a lot.

And today, I have a new year.  A year that isn’t touched by two cities or two jobs.  This year is Asheville.  This year, I water those roots again.  “Bloom where you are planted,” said the Bishop of Geneva, Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622).

Watch me grow.

Happy New Year.