2021

We ushered in the New Year from our car, both kids asleep in the backseat, driving home from BWI, and reflecting on the craziness of the past year. Little did we know then what the nascent year had in store for us, as we listened to Auld Lang Syne and watched the fireworks explode in the distance above DC.

But by mid-January, I had received my first dose of the Covid vaccine, and Drew had interviewed and accepted a job offer at a biotech company clear across the country in Vancouver, Washington. With only a month to pack up our things, wrap up work in Maryland, and sell our home, we had to say a hectic and bittersweet goodbye to the life we had imagined for ourselves on the East coast, while nervously and excitedly making new plans for our reimagined life in the Pacific Northwest. 

And it's still hard to write about the house on Norman Drive without feeling a little homesick. It was (and will forever be) the house that sheltered us through the worst of the pandemic, and that we had imagined as the backdrop for our future lives for many years to come. It offered us a beautiful, safe, and peaceful retreat, in a time when our world was being rapidly changed and confined, and it  provided respite for not only its human inhabitants, but so many animals who came to rest and graze undisturbed in the yard while we watched them quietly from inside.

Change is always challenging, but coming in the midst of a global pandemic and a tumultuous political climate, it has felt downright disorienting. We've had a couple months now to absorb the impact of the sudden move, while adapting through the constantly changing status of Covid restrictions and vaccine rollouts, and despite the whiplash-like emotions this period has yielded, I continue to feel extremely grateful for the opportunity to be closer to family, for the better work/life balance that the move has provided, and for the chance to dream fresh dreams for the future.

I'd like to say that we've settled back on stable ground now, but if I'm honest with myself, I don't think the ground every really stops moving out from under us, we just have to be prepared to keep moving along with it. So here's to staying on our metaphorical toes this year as we find new footing with each step or leap or stumble, ever forward.