Letter to the editor (my letter to myself)

Dear Me,

In an effort to begin closing this chapter of my life, I want to start creating some reflection memoirs and psychological distance from this chapter of my life. This has simultaneously been a very good and a very bad chapter of my life. The 2012-2013 chapter will be remembered for the duality that it was. I want to start reminding myself of all that I have done from January 2012 to September 2013. It's really crazy that in just 20 months all of this has happened, and these are only the MAJOR life-changing events...

1. Grandpa died, the first family member to die whom I was close to.
2. Broke up with short-term bf.
3. Quit my job in DC.
4. Fell in love with new bf.
5. Moved to a neighboring city in DC.
6. Found out I had an autoimmune disorder.
7. Moved from DC to Oregon on my own and with only 1 day of planning/packing.
8. Interviewed and found a high-profile job.
9. Collected dissertation data.
10. Moved to Washington.
11. Analyzed and wrote up dissertation.
12. Events leading to my losing nearly all contact with all family (still ongoing).
13. Break up.
14. Exposed to something at work and got sick from being in old building at work.
15. Turned in resignation to quit job (although this was changed to a leave of absence).
16. Moving to neighboring city in Washington.
17. Preparing for final dissertation meeting.

Any one of these points could make someone's life very painful, let alone this many of them in 20 months!! Self, I am so sorry that you had to go through all that. You are such a strong person for dealing with all that stuff, on top of the consequences that each of them brought you. You have chosen courage in pushing forward through all of those things that happened one after another. I'm glad for all those fun things you also did.

Additionally, I've done a TON of fun things with people and during travels that should be properly summarized another time when I can create a good summary of it. Short form of fun from January 2012-September 2013:

• Caving in Virginia, Medieval Times dinner and entertainment, Gettysburg, underground railroad tour, Kinetic Sculpture Race, air and space museum lectures, many museum visits (Natural History, Holocaust, Capitol Building, the monuments), Operation Spy, camping multiple times, renaissance festival twice, Columbia River cruise, weekend in New York (9/11 memorial, bike ride in Central Park, etc.), weekend in San Diego, toured downtown Baltimore and Fells Points, 4 hikes, 2 Orioles games, Ravens football game, attended wedding, Scottish Highland Games, apple picking, strawberry picking, blueberry picking, camping and kayaking at Assateague Island, Maryland city beach trip, 15+ concerts, 2-week trip to British Columbia (Whistler, Vancouver, Victoria, whale watching, 2 strenuous hikes, mining museum, etc.), multiple sightseeing trips in Portland (underground Pirate-themed, glow-in-the-dark mini golf, Voodoo Doughnuts, Rimsky's, Huber's, Portland City Grill, Ground Kontrol) and Seattle, hot air balloon ride, DC jazz in the garden, 2 Oregon beach trips, Washington beach trip, 3 more kayaking trips, 12-hour superhero costume party.

AND that doesn't even include the other things I've done like hang out with people, go to happy hours, board game nights, birthday parties, family gatherings, dinners with friends, writing a book, taking banjo lessons, gardening, running, and other events. How have I even made it through this past couple years? Lol. For me, the level of activity in the last year from October 2012-September 2013 or so has been abysmally low due to spending all my free time on my dissertation. Yet, look how much fun stuff I was still able to do since January 2012. You can only imagine what my usual life is like when I don't have this burden to carry. I have tons of events and fun things prior to 2012 to journal about, but I'll save that for another time because the present is only about wrapping up the 2012-2013 chapter of my life.

For the last half of this memoir, during this chapter of your life in 2012-2013, what were some of the happiest moments you had? 

To summarize and identify the patterns of the moments of sunshine I have seen recently, here is a description of the happiest moments when I felt like myself, happy, excited, and at peace:

Happiest moments of 2012-2013:

• Falling in love.
• Starting banjo lessons.
• Having a garden.
• Sitting on top of Stawamus Chief after the hike (it's still my desktop background because I love how it makes me feel):
  
• The day I decided to quit my PhD program in October 2012 (which I never ended up doing).
• The day I started to visualize REALLY being done with PhD in September 2013.
• Planning for a trip to Mexico, Ireland, Scotland, England, Hawaii, Bahamas, Europe, Australia, Pacific Crest Trail, Tahiti, and many other trips.
• Whenever I sit down to write or think about my fiction novel.
• Buying myself an Xbox and playing Skyrim.
• Watching Game of Thrones (clearly the nerd in me was reactivated).
• Seeing the NW nature.

I feel dizzy after reading all that. :-) I need to really go all out and pamper myself with a luxury vacation...poor self, I'm so sorry to have put you through all those difficult events and on such little sleep! But I'm glad we had so much fun together and made the most of your difficult ending to this chapter of your life (graduate school). I'll make it up to you soon, just you wait...you'll be free from your shackles in a couple days and you will have your life back. I'll treat you to a long beach vacation where you don't have to do a single thing except kayak in any beautiful turquoise waters you see. :-)

See you soon for our luxury vacation!

~Me