Who knew 2024 would be the year I start a blog? Or something along those lines. I’m excited to see where this platform is going to take me and very glad you’re here for the ride. I’ve been told more than once that I should write a book one day, give my unconventional life the format it almost naturally deserves. Tell my story, share my thoughts. Maybe I will one day, so I’d like to think of this spontaneous spark of creativity as carefree baby steps.

I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions. I strive to be the best version of myself every day, with added-in grace and patience to rest, reset, and get things back on track. It’s all a very fluid concept, if that makes sense. There are no big plans, no ground-breaking visions. Yet, there IS reflection. Holding space for another year well lived, lessons learned, and memories gathered. It’s a personal pat on the back for bravery, for personal and mental growth, for finding joy in the little moments, for waiting out storms, for all of it. All 365 pages. Thank you, but then… onward.

Originally, the title to this blog was “New Year, Same Me,” my happily and confidently telling you about life continuing to be dictated by our senior-military lifestyle during yet another deployment. Sadly, I had spoken too soon. Before I knew it, the year and that deployment would take my little life on a truly highjacked, heartbreaking infidelity-train wreck to a sixteen-year marriage that no one saw coming or believed to be possible. Life had been solid. Life had been perfectly imperfect. And now, life is all edited. New Year, New Me is unfortunately not some sort of cliché, superficial resolution… it’s a new life altogether in the most literal sense. A life whose focus was forcefully sharpened. One in which I will heal and find happiness again in due time. One, I’ll make sure, will shine brighter than before.

While the initial blog was written under sunny, blue skies in the Rocky Mountains foothills, it is now being edited amongst the marshes of coastal Georgia, a place that has become our home once again. Home used to be one person for so long, home now is an entire network of incredibly inspiring and uplifting people who selflessly provide safety and loving support. Home is Spanish moss soothingly swaying in Southern live oaks. It is the peace we chose and deserve.

Life on the outside might be drastically different now, yet the motivation with each day’s sunrise to paint life’s canvas as colorful as possible has not changed. Fueled by coffee and hope, I am going to slowly but surely turn our shards of glass into the shiniest of disco balls. 2024 is not just a new chapter, it is Life 3.0 and a whole new volume in the collection that is my life story. The story of a German girl whose heart is divided into so many time zones and who will always turn her face towards the sun, marvel at the world, and turn up her favorite music driving down yet another unfamiliar highway towards a new chapter, determined to humbly leave her mark on the world.