This is an old photo, one taken late 2015. It keeps popping up in my head though. I keep thinking about new beginnings and what it means to the old things that I have closed chapters on in my life. The old jobs. Friends I no longer talk to. People I’ve loved and lost. It’s amazing how many new steps also means walking away from the person you were before, the one you thought was the one you were gonna be.

I’ve always been so sure of my life, the path I wanted, but 2018 threw me for a loop. It was a doozy of a year and ultimately, made me grow so much as a person. Different, maybe not better, scarred but healing, doing a lot of things I never thought I would be doing.

It really is true that life happens when you’re busy making other plans. It’s harder for me admittedly because of my work in the past, operations does a number on your personal life because it bleeds into it. You find yourself looking for solutions to other people’s problems when no one asked you to get involved. Or when a person tries a different solution to the one you’ve thought of and it goes wrong, you get agitated or smug about it.

I’m trying to be less operations and efficiency and more human and friendly. Embracing this new me and bidding goodbye to the more Type A version that I was. I hope it lasts and impacts the next post I go to. It’s only time, and it’s better not just for my health but the general environment I’m in.

So Hello, Goodbye. This is Jody Alarva, version who knows what, and I’m hoping to live with love.