Not Quite Resolutions

I’ve never been one for New Years resolutions. In fact, I can’t remember a single year when I sat down and thought to myself, “this is the year that I accomplish this one big thing I’ve been meaning to do.” I have goals and wishes for the year, but it’s not quite the same thing as a resolution.

One goal I’ve made for myself in the past few months is to experience at least one new place a year. Ideally, this would be a new country and a completely different culture, but as I’m trying to be more financially responsible with my life, visiting a new country this year doesn’t seem quite feasible.

A couple weeks ago, I made a big decision. As I’ve written about before, I’m adopted. It’s part of my identity that I’m extremely enthralled by, and I want to learn as much about my past as possible. At the end of June of this year, I’ll be flying up to Washington to finally meet some of my biological family. While this isn’t a new country, it is completely out of my comfort zone, and it’s a trip that will undoubtedly be cause for a massive spike of growth in my life. However, it does occur to me that since I’ll be so close to the Canadian border, I might still be able to cross off another country visited on my list if I figure out a way to make a day trip up to Canada.

This is quite possibly one of the most intimidating steps that I’ll have taken in my life thus far. Meeting my family has always been a dream of mine and after finding them a year and a half ago, that dream has just gotten stronger. My plans to move to Alaska fell through and I found myself with more than enough air miles for a roundtrip flight within the continental US, so I jumped at the chance to scratch something else off of my bucket list.

I’m mostly going to be visiting and getting to know my aunt who was only 10 when I was born. She and I have several things in common, and there isn’t a very big age difference, so I’m very interested to see how we interact in person. It would be a dream come true to meet my other aunt, uncles, and especially my biological mother, but seeing as I haven’t heard from her in over a year, I don’t have high hopes. This will be a great first step in learning about where I come from, so I’m grateful for that more than I can figure out how to put into words at the moment.

This might be a bit strange to admit, but I’m also excited about this visit because I feel like it’ll be a perfect addition to the book on adoption I’m working on. The strange part is this: ever since I’ve started this blog, I’ve noticed that I’ve started to live my life in a way that would make a great story. I’ve always said that at the end of my life, I want to have lived a life full of interesting stories, but it hasn’t been until recently that I’ve begun to intentionally make decisions that will lead my life down an interesting path of growth and change.

As my trip creeps closer and closer, I have a feeling I will equally become more excited and nervous. I am happy that I’m pushing myself further and further out of my comfort zone and that protective bubble I allowed myself to live in for so long. After all, change only happens when you make yourself just a bit uncomfortable.

listening to: Young the Giant