The year that was and a new beginning

It's been a while since I've written anything on this blog, but with the year 2020 surprisingly ended up becoming, I have no regrets. I can be honest and say that I lost my passion for writing for a short period. Reality took over, and my dreams, creativity and imagination had to take a back seat to the things in my life. I went through a lot, and I don't think I realised how much I went through until now, that I've let my emotionally strong barrier down and I'm reflecting and writing about it. My mother went through breast cancer; my dad went through four weeks of radiation for his benign brain tumour, and my 88-year-old nan almost lost her life to a severe chickenpox case. I'm lucky to say though, that all are doing fine now. Personally, if I can be more open and honest, I had long moments of depression, and I lost my zest and wonderment of the world around me and my life. I'm not sure whether it had anything to do with the pandemic, but I lost something. I became so emotionally hard; I didn't let anything affect me, whether good or bad. I was living my life in a meh way. In the past weeks though, I've come out of that headspace, and I can see a new life that's waiting for me, a new chapter that I'm about to jump into passionately and with a sense of curiosity. If all goes according to plan, I'll finish my journalism degree in about seven months, with the hopes and determination that I'll have a job. I'll move out of home and maybe far away. I'm just going to leave my life open to the opportunities around me, leave my heart open for love and my curiosity open for spontaneous adventures. Continuing with the positivity, I need to reflect on the good things I learnt in 2020. I gained more confidence in my journalistic writing and had some great encouragement from my tutors. Through this, I've learnt that as much as I love writing about my travels, I want to write about many different things in many different ways. Although this technically is a travel blog, expect to see content unrelated to travel shortly. Good things continued, I started a good gym routine and have a keen interest in fitness which I plan to keep up. I met some incredibly gifted people and made new friends that have brought more joy to my life. I have my new years resolutions, but I'm not going to say them out loud. Instead, I'll focus on those internally and manifest them with hard work and dedication. The future is looking good for me, and I'm so close to a new beginning. I can almost feel myself lifting off the ground, ready to ride the new rollercoaster of the next chapter of my life. I'm excited, I'm passionate, and I feel prepared for a significant change. Watch this space! -JK