This year was the year where things were supposed to go back to normal. People were supposed to get vaccinated, coronavirus was supposed to stop being problematic, and Zoom calls weren’t supposed to dominate our lives anymore.

Instead, it has been another year filled with coronavirus news headlines. Lockdowns and restrictions were relaxed, but emerging variants continue to cause concern. In the summer, it was Delta; now, it’s Omicron.

Despite the uncertain circumstances worldwide, it has been a truly special year for my husband and I. Here are some highlights.

Living as Digital Nomads

Our jobs had both transitioned to work-from-home, and in January, we took advantage of the unique situation to become digital nomads. After staying home for most of 2020, we missed traveling, and wanted to try living in different cities.

We started our journey in Utah, where we bought a car (luckily before car prices skyrocketed), and embarked on a road trip to explore the Western US. Living out of a suitcase turned out to be easier than I had expected, and using Airbnbs as home bases along the way, we ended up driving 17,000 miles through 10 states. Over 8 months, we “moved” 5 times - living in Salt Lake City, Seattle, the San Francisco Bay Area, Denver, and Portland.

We bought an America the Beautiful National Park Pass, and hiking became a regular weekend activity. We drove up Mount Evans Road, the highest paved road in North America at 14,130 feet, where we admired the rocky and snow-capped landscape while struggling to catch our breath in the oxygen-thin air. We visited Death Valley’s Badwater Basin, the lowest point of elevation in North America (282 feet below sea level) and were fascinated by the desert landscape in one of the hottest places on earth.

Settling Down

In September, we were tired from constantly moving, and were ready to settle down. We researched neighbourhoods, agreed on a budget, spent hours browsing Zillow, and found an apartment we both liked. We signed the lease and were excited to finally have a place to call our own.

Then came the challenge of furnishing. Our first problem were the global supply chain disruptions - everything we wanted seemed to be either out of stock or on backorder. Our second problem was that we had very different opinions on how we wanted our home to look like. We would visit furniture stores and walk out empty-handed because we couldn’t agree on what to buy. I never imagined that we would be having multiple discussions over things like what garbage or recycling bin we should buy, but alas, that was one of the many things we had strong opinions on. Learning to work through those differences was a challenge, but our relationship is now stronger because of them :)

(Sorta) Meeting my New Year’s Resolution

My resolution was to walk 6000 steps everyday. I came up with it because I had stopped exercising during the pandemic and had gained a lot of weight. I wanted to give myself an actionable item to do everyday that forced me to be more active and get out of the house more. I had averaged 4500 steps in 2020, compared to 7400 in 2019, so I picked a number somewhere in between those two to set as a realistic goal.

At the beginning of the year, I was quite obsessive over this goal and would go out for walks late at night before sleeping if I hadn’t reached it yet. I took up running in the spring/summer, and that naturally contributed many steps. However, ever since settling down into our new apartment, I’ve been getting lazier and missing the goal a couple times a week started becoming normal. Part of the reason is also because this time of year is cold and wet, making me just want to stay inside.

Despite this, I averaged 8300 steps this year, and my monthly average was >6000 steps for 11 out of the 12 months. I didn’t manage to walk 6000 steps everyday, but I stayed relatively motivated throughout the year and walked a lot more than I did previously. I’m going to call that a win.