2021 Review (because yes everyone is still confused)

It’s February 2022. Not only did I NOT publish my 2020 review from last year, I never wrote my 2021 recap.

2021 was an insane year. I mean I feel weird saying that because look at 2020, but 2021 was right up there too despite it being much easier in terms of the pandemic (for some).

Some things that made 2021 insane:

• A particuarily emotionally crippling lockdown, though one in which we have since realized was nice compared to what others went through!
• The pandemic still had a huge affect on work, particularly whether or not a job would be remote once the pandemic was “over” which made seeking employment confusing.
• Moving multiple times, the majority of which were not by choice
• The struggle between remote vs. the settled life.
• Learning a new profession in a matter of months!

Here’s a monthish by monthish review:

Jan: Happy New Year Edinburgh! Hello lockdown! Starting December 26th 2020 we were plunged into a multiple-month lockdown initially called a “circuit breaker.” We spent NYE in our apartment trying to figure out how to watch the ball drop after realizing we didn’t have a BBC subscription. Eventually, we put our ears out the window to see when people would cheer “Happy New Year.” To say it was alienating was an understatement.

I began taking the School of Motions Animation Bootcamp. It really does teach amazing animation principles and I did do some projects with it.

The only socializing we had was going to our local coffee shop to pick up a cup of jo from the shop window. We cherished this. I drank a lot of salted caramel mochas.

Feb: Unfortunately, the job at Microsoft Zurich which Ivan was hoping to get didn’t go through. Work for me was so so and I had no leads in terms of FTE in the U.K. Ivan made a plea that, given the lockdown and lack of job prospects, that we move elsewhere to save money. He mentioned it’d be good to go to Bankso and save then go to Japan so I could study for the JLPT – an opportunity that would be hard to come by later in life. I was resistant because I had friends and Edinburgh was the first place that made me feel stable, but as I write this, and maybe because I’m biased thinking of my current situation, I do understand why Ivan suggested this. Seriously I was studying, but in terms of jobs it really didn’t seem like I was doing much.

March: Ivan and I arrived in Bankso and stayed at the Four Leaf Clover again. It was nice to go to a place we already knew. My friend Nicole was also there, but guess what…even before we arrived she got a HORRIBLE case of covid. So did many other people. Basically, no one was going out and Ivan and I worked at the coworking downstairs but we were scared and started staying in our tiny one-bedroom attic apartment. Even so, we did go to restaurants together, though they closed for a two weeks at one point. In fact on March 1st everything opened for a bit and it was glorious!

Ivan was likely going to get a job at Microsoft Italy but we needed to choose Rome or Milan. I was asked to choose. I freaked out and asked endless people in endless Facebook groups. I had a few panic attacks. It wasn’t good. I really didn’t want to move to another country permanently. I had only agreed to do it in Edinburgh but definitely wasn’t interested in moving to Italy. Ivan had applied for the job on a whim, never thinking he was going to get it.

Then we joined Nestwork coworking and went on some amazing trips and things were looking up. In particular, we ate VERY good food in Plovdiv and stayed at a nice hotel there.

Throughout the whole time I was in Bankso, I attended my friend Kristy’s painting classes which brought me closer to other people in our building as well as introduced me to a woman named Karolina who encouraged me to go into UX writing (that will come up later).

April: After a brief closure, everything opened again in April. But by then the job for Ivan and Microsoft was finalized and he was going to start working there. We chose Milan since it seemed like there was a more active and consistent expat community there than Rome.

I was having a really great time in Bansko and the weather was improving. I really liked the people there. I really enjoyed Sarah, a woman from France who’s an entrepreneur around my age. Later we also went back to Melnik. We had a day where it was 25 degrees/ 77 F and then it snowed as we were heading back to Bankso (in the mountains).

Lastly, we decided to leave Bulgaria and head back to Italy on April 21st, the day after my bday, so we could celebrate my 37th in Sofia. I later regretted this as I didn’t get to spend it with all the awesome people I’d met and Ivan forgot that I had asked for champagne no less than 30x.

That being said, the food we ate in Sofia was divine. Some truly exceptional sushi. And when we finally DID get champagne it was some of the best I ever had.

However, upon returning to Italy it was clear that the sun was much needed and we had a truly relaxing coming home.

May: We left Italy to see my mom for 2 weeks before Ivan started work. I was allergic to basically everything the entire time. Then I got my J&J on May 3rd so I was sick again. I felt like my mom was obsessed with talking about all the men she was dating and I had really wanted an ear concerning all my anxieties about the future living in Italy – which was something I wasn’t prepared to do and didn’t want to do.

Ivan’s mom prepared all the paperwork for me so my immigration and its bureaucracy was mostly handled by her. It was amazing.

June: I went to the hospital because I thought I had a blood clot. I did not, but my leg was really stiff. The workstation at my in-laws wasn’t really suitable. Eventually my back went out completely and I didn’t know what was going on. I had been told to get tests to rule out MS so I was quite terrified about that. It took a long time for my insurance to go through and for me to receive treatment. Meanwhile Ivan had to do some business travel to Rome so I was alone with his parents, who were nice to me and his mom helped me a lot.

July: No business trips till later, slow adventures with my bad back, I quit italki, the site I’d been teaching on for years. After much emotional work and thought, I felt as though my body was telling me I needed to switch jobs. I felt this HUGE relief when I did this. You have no idea. But at the same time I also felt really guilty. Luckily, the editing company I worked with the past two years asked me to start back with them early so I had some work. Still I was barely employed.

I had an interview for a FTE in Edinburgh. Ivan said we could risk moving back if I found a job. Unfortunately, I knew something was screwy right away from the first interview. Then I interviewed with the CEO and I thought it could be a cool position.

We traveled to a lot of pretty places. We had a particularly good time in the Dolomites. This was a highlight for me of this year.

We went to Rome at the end of the month. Ivan had REALLY wanted me to join him there, but I couldn’t go before due to my health. I had a so so time, but met up with two people, including some friends from my NYC days and that was a joy.

August: I got diagnosed with autism, something I really began to suspect I had. I’m very low on the spectrum, but it still explains a lot. It helped me to understand a number of meltdowns that I had in June and July especially in regards to expectations and getting really stuck on ideas. Not that that didn’t already happen a lot for me.

Things in June and July were hard because I really didn’t see a future for myself in Italy and things were getting weird with my in-laws who were annoyed with me and the fact that I didn’t like music playing during the day.

But things all changed come August 15th! We flew to Croatia where we had a week + holiday. We definitely didn’t make it an easy trip for ourselves as we had quite a few bus journeys, but it would have been hard to do otherwise as the entirety of Europe was so busy that summer with people who couldn’t take a vacation in 2020 going nuts!

The Croatia vacation was nice except it was too expensive. We stayed in Zadar > Brač > Split > Zadar. I liked Brač. It was really chill and we found many beautiful beaches with very clear water. We eventually settled on a beach which had beds we rented for two days.

After that we took a plane straight to Albania as we just couldn’t go back to Italy without having a long term plan – tensions back there were that high.

We stayed in a big beautiful apartment in Tirana and WOW it was just what we needed. After two weeks, though, we had to find a different place which wasn’t as nice. However, we stayed both times in a neighborhood called Bloku which was in the former communist area where the officials lived. It was tree-lined so although it was very warm and sunny it was breathable.

In general, Albania was relaxing and had Thailand and Vietnam vibes. The faces were especially nice and the food was so fresh. It was some of the best I’d ever had.

That being said, we didn’t meet anyone except for a few people in our first coworking space. We went there so Ivan could work on a presentation and so that I could do a paid trial week for that FTE job I mentioned in Edinburgh, but after that we just worked sometimes from coworking spaces and otherwise just worked from home or cafes.

September: Ivan and I got a bit bored but visited Berat and went to the south for our anniversary. We went to the area of Dhermi where we were told had the best beaches.

They were great, but we seemed to be there at the end of the season and the area near our hotel was quite rundown. Still, the views were quite amazing! Despite that it wasn’t the most romantic place, one of the beaches we stayed on had no people and was completely run down, we still enjoyed ourselves.

The last night we found a fancier beach and boardwalk that was much nicer and where the drinks were cheaper.

We went back to Italy for a week and then, after much back and forth, we went to Edinburgh because our friends let us stay in their place while we looked for a flat. But it was hard, so then we stayed in a hotel!

October: We got our long-term flat in Leith. Though for almost a month Ivan and I took turns sleeping on the bed and the air mattress upstairs. We were so relieved to have a place. Ivan immediately bought a desk. We spent time with our friends. We went to comedy shows for the first time in years.

However, immediately after getting to Edinburgh, I felt like my body rebelled against it. “Not this again, not this depression,” it almost said. I felt really down. I had waited so long to come back here, why wasn’t I happy?

At this point, I decided to make a big move and just enrolled in an intensive learning design course so I could officially change careers. However, once I switched up my LinkedIn profile, I started getting recruiters writing me about a position called content design.

Ivan, Jesse, Rob, and I found a super authentic Japanese restaurant where everyone spoke Japanese and it was so delicious and fun for me.

November: I think the joy of moving back was wearing off. We weren’t thrilled with living in Leith. We knew that we had been happier in New Town as early as September, but we couldn’t afford it.

So we started pushing ourselves to go out and do stuff, such as joining meetups. We went to something called the far east group where we went out to a far-out area of Edinburgh for dim sum. It was bad food and the people were nice, but there was no instant connection. We went out with them again though.

I studied like crazy to improve both my instructional and content design portfolios.

December: I had multiple interviews with Facebook. I had to completely make new portfolio items and talked with many people to figure out what I should put. It was stressful as I was working as well, but I knew for what felt like the first time in awhile that the effort I was putting into it was worth it.

I had hoped to do the interview and finish things up before the new year, but it got postponed till after our vacation with my mom.

Unfortunately, covid came back a knocking with the omicron variant and restrictions were once again introduced – though no more lockdowns.

Despite this, Ivan and I went back to Philadelphia for the holidays.

We had what can only be described as one of the Xmas holidays I’ve had in recent memory. It was so relaxing, we read books, and we played with animals. I had much more quality time with everyone than back during the May visit.

I also felt that I was in such a better place emotionally. Things were in the process of happening, but they were things that I had put into motion, such as the jobs I’d applied for. It really felt like back in the middle of the year I was completely passive with almost no control in my life, and suddenly at the end of the year things came to be the exact opposite.

Here’s to a great 2022!