2023 Year in Review

Another cross-country move, new friends, new beers, and so…so much growth. 2023 was a year of change, learning, and adaptation. I truly did a horrible job of documenting most of it in photos, but wow — was it a great one. It’s great to see you all again after another exciting 12 months, so let’s get into it (and upfront: apologies for some of the lack of photos. I’m really hoping it doesn’t impede my ability to remember all of the wonderful memories of the year.) 

2022 Year in Review

It’s hard to believe it’s time to sit down and put another one of these together. I think we can all agree that 2022 absolutely flew by, and I hope yours was as filled to the brim with the things that bring you joy as mine was. I don’t have much more to say besides buckle in, because this year was a ton of fun to live through – hopefully, writing (and potentially reading) this year in review will portray at least a sliver of that fun. 

Year In Review: 2021

Another year behind us, and another looming very closely in front of us — for me, 2021 was a year of accomplishing some big goals, and also a year of falling short on a few long-term goals. There were a lot of unexpected wonderful things, and a lot of stress, but thankfully I’m ending 2021 much happier than I began it. Lucy and I are both healthy, and I made it home for Christmas (with a plus one, too). Once again, it’s another year that I’m sure I’ll want to take a look back on in the future and remember all of the adventures that took place, so I wanted to put together another “Year In Review” blog post. Maybe that’s all this site will turn into, and for now, I’m okay with that. 

Year In Review: 2020

Um, wow. Hi. I can’t believe it’s been four years since I sat down to try and do one of these year-in-reviews. I only have one excuse, really, and that’s that 2017 was such a brutal year for so many reasons…and since then, I lost my juju to not only keep up the blog, but also the year-in-reviews. Not that 2020 hasn’t been brutal. It absolutely has. But in such a different way, and for so many more of us. It probably is going to be a challenge to find the good in the year, but I think this year (more than ever before) it’s going to be important for me to recap the year. Even if nobody reads it… if only for me to look back on to remind myself what a rollercoaster of a year this has been. 

Without further adieu… 

I’m 24 and I want a Hysterectomy

…is not something you see every day, but is something I have seriously been thinking about every day, lately. And to be fair, let’s preface this whole thing with clarifying I don’t exactly want a hysterectomy…but it’s seeming to be a far better option than any of the alternatives.

Last year (2018), I was diagnosed with Endometriosis. I had never even heard of this condition until I was diagnosed with it (which I’m not sure if I should attribute to the seeming lack of knowledge of the condition in general/common discussion of women’s health, or if it’s a failed public schooling.)

Hey, you stayed with us

It’s no secret that I’ve been relatively quiet over here on my corner of the internet. Even the last piece I wrote really at all was pretty short — kind of a surprise to me, too. Especially because it was about my first marathon, which I could talk about endlessly. And after the fact, I wanted to write something commemorating how I felt…but I couldn’t do it. I’d open the word document, write a few sentences, and very quickly lose interest, or find that I simply couldn’t go on anymore. When it came to writing, I had nothing left to say. It persisted through almost every aspect of my life, it seemed. I couldn’t write about music, I couldn’t get things done, and it felt like I was just stuck in a constant rotation of a little bit of school, a lot of work (which was also starting to feel too monotonous and exhausting), running when I could, and cleaning my impossibly messy room all of the time.

After aging out, I think that the events from last spring finally caught up to me. I had gone so long without thinking about the loss my family had endured, because I had so many things I knew I had to finish out strong. Graduating from Columbia, and the entire summer with Spirit; all truly wonderful, amazing capstones to the last four or five years of my life. But then it came time to start something new.

We’re (Finally) Running a Marathon

“Marathon” is a word that’s been bouncing around in my head for a few years now. I wanted to run my first marathon in 2015, but my parents urged me to wait until I aged out from drum corps and finish college before I did my first full. I filled the void with half-marathons as best I could, but since coming off tour in 2016 (yes, over a year ago), my sights have been set on finishing 26.2. I started working at Fleet Feet, found myself surrounded by distance runners and constantly helping people who were pushing themselves to complete their goals, and kept chugging on my own path.

I’ve Finally Aged Out…And it Sucks

I’ve been procrastinating returning to writing pretty hardcore since I got home. I also knew that I would need to ease myself back in, and I didn’t think that getting to work on this entry would be the way to do that. Instead, I wrote about four different cover letters and, well, now here we are. It’s time to dive into the blog post I’ve been dreading to write for the last five years. The post that’s supposed to put what drum corps has meant to me into roughly 1,000 words. I doubt we’re going to make it…but if there’s anything that drum corps has taught me, it’s that I’ll do my best. And most of the time, that’s enough.

 

Age-outs (PC: Erin Sintos)

 

Quick: You’ve Graduated!

I’m not going to lie and say that I had no idea what to expect when I moved in to the University Center for my Freshman year at Columbia. I had expectations — I had huge expectations. I knew I was paying a huge amount of money to go to this school, and I expected them to deliver on every one of those expectations. That was my first lesson: don’t have too many expectations for the big things. Because it’ll probably turn out not how you were expecting at all, and be entirely different…but maybe, that’s what you need.

I wanted to write a big long mushy post highlighting some of the best parts of my college career, but in typical fashion with the rest of my life right now, I totally ran out of time. Plus, I have quite a few pages highlighting each semester already, so why should I make the final one be any different? Plus, the last five months have been so jam-packed with things (both really difficult and really wonderful), so I can’t short-change my last semester.

What I’ve Learned From my Grandpa

[Originally written and read this for Mel Kooda’s funeral held in McGregor, Minnesota on April 22nd, 2017.]

What I turn to in times of what I’ll call “writer’s block,” is list-making. I guess I had a little bit of an issue kicking this one off, and I think it’s because I knew once I started writing this piece, that at some point… it would be done. And then that’s it. The reality of both of my grandparents no longer being just a phone call away has sunk in a little bit more.

So what I’ve got for you today is a list of things (in no particular order), that I learned from my Grandpa, with the help of my sister, Kenzie.

1.Take chances in your career