Hellloo dear reader!

Two blog posts in a weekend — who are we?!

After a rather depressing post yesterday, we’re back on happiness today on this beautiful Sunday (We’re laying in sun rays…🎵).

I realized the irony of starting this blog as a travel blog because I actually get really anxious when I’m traveling and I’m not on my routines. Before I went on my DR trip, I told my dad “Oh I’m a little anxious” and he said “That’s okay, you’re always anxious before you travel” And I very defensively said “What?! No I’m not!” and now I’m realizing… yes, he’s 100% right.

For years I dreamed of having those jobs where I get to travel and am jet-setting everywhere and I’m at fancy hotels and eating at fancy restaurants… but really, I’m just a girl who loves her routines and predictability, and turns out traveling makes me anxious. It makes sense now that even right before I visited my favorite people in Philly, I got anxious going on the Amtrak. I felt way less anxious driving there myself and am glad I finally started doing that because that made a huge difference. But I’m torn because I used to have a deep love for airports, and now I’m just convinced I was using my love of airports to bandaid my anxiety pre-travel.

And thinking back to my 2024, I’ve been traveling so much (which I’m also very grateful for) that I haven’t spent enough time at home to build back my routines. Whether it’s going to New York, Dominican Republic, India, or San Francisco … I love all these experiences and was excited/am excited for them and the people I get to spend time with there, but doing this much traveling in a short amount of time (every 3 weeks) is a little too much for my inherently shy-self: it burns me out, it messes with my routine, and I end up missing home. Whenever I’m there I have a great time, but I think it was a little too many trips crunched into too close of a time frame.

I’m also looking forward to April 1 when I’m officially back in the DMV for the near future, and for now all the traveling I see myself doing in the next few months are road trips. I think the next big trip I want to take should be in June or afterward so I get to have “boring weekends at home” where I go on morning walks and dillydally at farmers’ markets.

Speaking of morning walks, I got to rekindle my morning walks with my bff Mark today!! There was a point in time when we were hanging out every Saturday or Sunday morning and would go to different local farmers’ markets and he was my designated Instagram photographer (his gallery literally had hundreds of pics of me in slightly different poses because I insisted that “my hair looks weird” in every picture only to finalize one where my hair looks exactly the same as the rest of them). But sadly, life got in the way and we both got busy and we haven’t had a walk/farmer’s market excursion in a long time… until today!

The jetlag is putting me on this incredible 10 pm-6 am sleep schedule — which for most people is a normal sleep schedule, but I’m usually a 3 am-10 am girlie — so I got to meet Mark super early today and we went for a walk and treated ourselves to coffee. We go to this one park about 10 minutes from our parents’ houses that we love. There’s a shopping center nearby with an overpriced coffee shop (typical) but the park has a field, a playground, tennis courts, and a nice walking path for Mark and I to walk and go on little ranting updates about our lives. No matter how many times I’ve been to this park though, my directionally-challenged self always has to look up where this park is and put it on my Maps — Mark, when you read this, yes I did have to search up the address

Even though it was a little windy, it was the perfect “spring is here” energy. People were out and about: doing group outdoor yoga classes, walking their dogs, and playing pickleball. I even played my first 30 seconds of Pokémon go ever. Mark was tying his shoe while I “pressed the screen repeatedly” and defeated a gym. Boss babe status over here.

Then we stood in the parking lot while I reminisced my tennis days, and Mr. prepared took out tennis balls and a racket from his trunk and I excitedly bounced the ball on the racket for a hot 3 minutes. I proceeded to say “I would make a great sports girlfriend/wife” especially for like, cricket, soccer, or tennis. After all, for my 10th grade English speech, I spoke for 90 seconds about how “Tennis is the best sport” because the dude I had a crush on at the time played tennis (so inspired, I know, but I got an A on the speech so it’s fine)

But basically, walking with Mark I remembered that during days of peak happiness, our walks were a steady part of our routine and in my 2024 journey to happiness, I’m determined to get back to it. So April, when I’m consistently back in the DMV, I have high hopes for you

Right now, I’m going to drink the rest of this “Lucky Charms” latte that I bought (toasted marshmallow, hazelnut, and white chocolate) and start reading a book that Katie said will “get me out of my funk” (stay tuned). To all of you, Happy St. Patrick’s Day, and don’t forget to wear green 🙂