Happy New Year! 2022

This post is coming a bit late, but I wrote it on the morning of January 1st, 2022 in my beautiful little village on the island of Crete. I have chosen to reflect on the past year and all the changes and amazing experiences it brought to my life. 2021 was a challenging year, in many ways more challenging than 2020. It was the year that the world tried to get back to normal, and just as we thought we were going to accomplish that, the pandemic took a turn and is even more complicated 2 years in than from the beginning. Yes, 2021 was a challenge, but despite all the tremendous heartache, loss and frustration, I have taken the time this morning to reflect on my own 2021 and acknowledge all that I accomplished.

After 17 years, I finally worked up the courage to say goodbye to NYC, the city that I love over all others. I took a leap of faith and moved to the island of Crete in Greece for a job opening a new hotel during one of the most challenging years in the hospitality industry. I faced extreme challenges in a country I thought I knew well, but suddenly realized I knew very little about. I made a new home for myself, made many new dear friends, discovered a new place that I find truly remarkable and I know that it will now be a place I return to, and perhaps even live again throughout my life. I feel completely overwhelmed and grateful that I have discovered Crete, something that I’m not sure would have happened had COVID never been a thing. I finalized (not easily by any means) my Greek Citizenship and now hold 2 passports for 2 amazing places. I experienced pain, heartache, loss and tremendous anxiety, and in the end gained valuable insight and lessons, new friends and new skills that I will carry with me throughout my life. I learned the Greek language much more than I had known it before. Most importantly for me, I have had the opportunity to live in a country that makes me feel close to my father, someone who I ache for every single day of my life even now 21 years after his passing. A country full of churches and monasteries that encompass the religion that he loved so much and that he made the center of his life and shared with all of us. I think this is possibly one of the best parts of 2021. That I felt so close to my father every time I drove through the mountains of Greece or walked into a church to light a candle, visited a monastery or saw fishing boats out at sea. I never had the opportunity to experience Greece with my dad, but being here, I know that he is looking down on me and smiling because I have been able to experience something that I think I needed to so badly in order to move forward with my life.

Here’s to a fantastic 2022 full of Health first and foremost, peace, love, success and a fresh start to be everything that we wish to be in this life. That is the hope that I have on this beautiful Saturday morning in sunny Crete.