This year was better than I could have dreamed. It didn’t start out that way,
though.
The anxiety that I’ve lived with for most of my life became unmanageable
and I decided that I wanted to get it under control. That meant going on
medication, which has changed my life for the better in fairly significant ways.
Price flew up to NYC to help me out while I was getting through the first couple
of weeks of that journey, which were not easy. I’m beyond grateful for him being
there for me, and for the family and friends I leaned quite heavily on during
that time.
A new relationship formed shortly afterwards. Emma and I met in August of 2022
at work. More accurately, on a Google Meet video call because she was in Arizona
and I was in Georgia at the time. Our adventure of love has been a beautiful
experience, one that has taught me so much. And as I wrote in a song for her:
all day I could look at your face. (The song is on Apple Music and
Spotify).
I’ll be posting a few albums for 2023 but this is the first because NYC was the
setting of so many important moments throughout the year.
This year was a year of slowly getting back to my normal nomadic habits after
a couple of years of staying put.
I spent a lot of time at the lake house, including preparing for the demolition
of the old house.
At the end of the summer I spent 3 weeks in Milwaukee visiting Amanda and Ben
and Rowan. I also got to meet a friend and coworker, Todd, in
person for the first time.
Towards the end of the year I met someone new.
After Amsterdam I went to Paris for a few days. It was a
quiet time of sightseeing before heading to London.
After spending the first 14 months of the pandemic in Florida and
Georgia, I moved back to NYC in May of 2021. Why? Still not really sure.
I have been in and out of the city since 2016 and was feeling the pull again;
NYC has a tendency to draw you in once you’ve spent time there. And I was ready
to be around more people. Who knows how long I’ll be here this time.
Depression struck after I moved up, but that story is one that’s better told in
its own post (I’m okay now). It’s why I don’t really have any pictures from the
Summer and only a couple in NYC.
I went to Georgia for Thanksgiving, to hang out with the fam and camp. Then I
took two weeks off at the end of December. That time off was the most
restorative experience I’d had in a while. I had a very strong creative
resurgence as I was coming out of my depression in October; taking time off only
pronounced that. I began editing travel videos from my Year Off
and I started playing music again. Not to spoil 2022 but so far it has
been a deeply satisfying year of making things.
On our way back towards Western Europe, we spent a week in
Amsterdam.
The first unplanned stop on this trip was Prague. On the advice of someone
we talked to in Berlin, we decided to check out both Prague and
Budapest. We then stopped in Vienna for a day on our way
to Amsterdam.
After Scandinavia I spent a week in Germany. First in Berlin
then around Thuringia.
After leaving Iceland we headed to Scandinavia.
I posted photos from both Stockholm and Copenhagen.
On our last two days in Iceland we wandered around Reykyavik.
Here are my pictures from that day.
On our third day in Iceland we drove for a while to reach Diamond Beach.
Here are my pictures from that day.