Water
For as long as I can remember, I have been infatuated with water. Maybe it’s a survival instinct, having grown up and then returning in my adult life to desert environments. But I think it's more about the sensory, either soothingly warm or refreshingly cool, the calming sounds, the literal lightness of being in water, that draws me in. As early as I can remember, I think it started with not wanting to transition from childish baths to grown-up showers. But even when I did, I took long showers. My family noticed and made fun of me, but that didn't necessarily deter my behaviors. I remember an early childhood vacation with just me and my parents to Shell Beach in California, my Mom teaching me how to let my feet sink into the sand as the ocean waves rose and ceded around them, and me playing in the pool as long as my parents would allow me to and pushing the boundaries at that. 
I love swimming. Not necessarily swimming for exercise, although I try to do that now when the weather allows. Moreso, I love moving in water. Whether its stretching out and floating, letting the water push me around where it will, or cycling my legs and moving them around while bobbing up and down, or calmly doing the elementary backstroke while taking in the view, I love the feeling of moving in water. I have another childhood memory that encompasses this: while we were moving to New Jersey, my parents and I stayed in a hotel for most of the summer and I met a boy around my age who was also there for a long-term stay. He and I would spend hours in the pool together and, while I may have liked him romantically, I don't recall there ever being anything suggestive in the pool with him. Rather, we put together and perfected what we thought was a pretty neat series of circus-like underwater tricks which we'd perform for unimpressed adults. I think he must have shared my love of the water because we both seemed to think what we were doing was amazing, and it clearly wasn't. In my pool here in Palmdale, I find it absolutely breathtaking (not literally) to see the depth from under the water, see the crazy lines the sun and small waves make on the pool floor, it's like a secret world that's all my own. It's hard to describe but it's just one of those things that absolutely thrills me. Easily thrilled, right?
I wrote a post a couple years ago about my happy places - locations to which I've loved traveling to that make me happy. The three places all have to do with water. Oahu, or Hawaii more generally as I can now count Maui in my travel experience, is lovely because of the beautiful oceans and eternal summer allowing for year-round swimming and walks on the beach. Among many other 
things, I love Japan for its hot springs culture - soaking in an Onsen (hot spring) was a life-changing experience for me and I've been back many times to do just that, and I especially loved my room on the beautiful island of Miyajima which had its own private Onsen. The third location is Venice, which is known for being basically waterlocked and having canals throughout the city and bridges going over the canals. In fact, in one of my favorite pictures from Venice, I'm wearing a shirt that says, "Life is better by the water."
When I moved from Arizona to Connecticut, one of the non-negotiables for me was to have a heated pool. I one-upped this when I moved to Florida and got a house right by the beach. I loved walking or running down to the beach, stretching while the sun rose over the ocean or jumping in to the warm, clear water when the weather was good. That beach in PCB is what broke me of my terror of sand, since its sand was clean, thin white "sugar sand" which I learned to tolerate. When we moved to San Diego, I wanted to live downtown and, against my better judgment, did not buy a place with a bathtub, which I very quickly regretted and compensated for by planning my vacations around what kind of baths different places had. 
The bonus of living in San Diego was that we were very close to the ocean and when I went for my morning run in Balboa Park - one of the best venues for running in my experience - I could soak up that ocean air and it made me feel so good. Having learned my lessons, the house I bought in Palmdale has a heated pool, a hot tub, and a nice size soaking bathtub in the master, in addition to regular showers and tubs. Many people have commented on how I'm practically living in a resort, and I tend to agree, it's just about perfect, or at least as perfect as it can be in Palmdale, California.
I like being on boats - cruise ships or speed boats or ferries or jet skis. Not only do they afford me the chance to bring back that never-dying song, "I'm on a Boat" by Lonely Island, but I just love the feeling of floating or crashing through waves, whichever the case may be. Even though sometimes it makes me motion sick, I still love it. I'm down for whale watching tours even if we don't see whales, because being on the water makes me so happy. And, I'm usually pretty lucky when it comes to wildlife sightings so we usually see something cool. Queue video of mama and baby humpback whale coming within feet of our snorkeling tour boat this past week. AMAZING!
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When I'm on the beach or in the ocean, I feel like I'm more myself - even though I hate sand. I feel healthy, like I can breathe better, figuratively and literally/physically. I can meditate on the ocean surf crashing on the beach, rising and falling, and that relieves the inner turmoil in my head and the physical pain from migraine. I can float comfortably when I'm in the ocean, and I am comfortable swimming as needed. I enjoy snorkeling when the water is clear, and I 
have had some extraordinary experiences with sea turtles or in the Great Barrier Reef, and most recently at Molokini Crater which has visibility up to 150 or 200 feet! It makes me think that my life needs more beach in it. I'm like Ken from the Barbie movie, I just Beach. I don't lifeguard, and I'm not a surfer, I Beach, and I'm good at it. I've been living in Los Angeles County for over two years but have only gone out to the beach a handful of times, twice just to see the airshow and not actually, you know, beach. Being in Maui the last couple weeks has reminded me how much I love the ocean,
and I think I'd be most happy living at a beach. Whether that's a Florida beach or California, or Hawaii or Australia or some other wild destination, I don't think it matters. As long as I can beach. And in the meantime, I will enjoy both my pool and hot tub, and should probably make the most of my proximity to the LA area beaches. Afterall, I used to drive 6 hours from Arizona for the chance to see a beach like that, what's an hour or two on the weekend compared to that?
Finding Me
I feel like 2023 was a lot about finding myself again after the decade-long relationship. I tend to like what my significant other likes, so long as I tolerated it before, and so being intertwined for so many years has made me wonder what parts of our lives were me and what parts were him.
Returning to swing dancing was a really big thing for me in 2023, and I'm so glad for it. It's still not convenient in any way, but every time I go, even if I wasn't feeling it, I end up deciding it was worth it. The irony is that my ex- and I had met swing dancing, so you'd think that wouldn't be something he'd have taken me away from. But in our breakup I learned he was still, STILL holding onto this wild idea that I had cheated and would continue to cheat with another swing dancer I had been seeing before him, even though I had never once cheated on him and stopped talking to the guy once I found out how much it upset my ex- that we were still friends. Insane, right?
I doubled-down on my love for Lego, I guess that's staying. That was one in which my ex- and I sort of enabled and magnified in each other's habits, so I wasn't sure if it was mine solely after the breakup, but I also recall that I did love Lego before I met him, and I have continued to enjoy building when I make time to do so, so I'm claiming it.
Walking outdoors has been another thing I continue to return to. I was never stopped from doing that per se in my relationship, but it got more challenging when I was torn between that and spending time with him, or just so exhausted that the simple distraction of the TV shows was enough to deflate any motivation I had in me.
Resolutions for 2024
This has been a long, winding and perhaps somewhat disconnected path to get to where I want to go in 2024. Having learned some devastating news related to work a couple weeks ago, I already know that my job, work life and potentially living location may be in flux next year, and I'm living with a lot of uncertainty going into the new year. I often take inspiration from Pantone's Color of the Year and their description of their selection, but this year I found it too soft and uninspiring for the way I plan to take on the year I turn 40. I am not ready to let life just pass me by, I want to maintain and double down on the themes I started in 2023: living with intention, getting into space and nature, reconnecting deeply and creating ease in my life. But I also don't want to "just" do those things again. I was reminded whole on my vacation in Maui that family time is fun but not to lose myself or forget to carve out time for me to relax, and that was much needed then and will likely be needed over and over again on 2024.
I feel like all signs point me to water, and I need to find myself, no, make myself, live with water as a prominent part of my life, whatever that means. And now that I've rediscovered what I love, I want to do more of that. I want to write more, and I want to lose the weight. I am frustrated that the Milky Way has alluded me when I seek it out, and it makes me want to see it even more. I don't know how I'm going to accomplish all the things I want to do, but I know I want to make things happen in 2024. I want to be the person who I envision for myself. I want to make me who I imagine I could be.
I feel like I'm still rebuilding my life and making me. When you make something, you usually don't just wing it, you have a plan. So I think what I can do, right here, in 2023, to make sure I feel good about 2024 in a year from now, is to make a plan. I've also found that planning a vacation or roadtrip, even if its short, has been therapeutic for me. So I think my general theme for 2024 is to plan time for me. And the specifics are:
Have a Plan for Every New Moon
Make Plans to Write Each Month
Plan for Swing Dance
Get to the Water
Fix What's Broken
Spend Less
Eat Well
Move
Happy New Year, everyone, and I hope you find inspiration in these posts and have a fantastic 2024!
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