2018: The Good Year
First things first... I realize that I need to post more frequently than my semi-annual updates on what I’m doing. I also realize this post is coming about 27 days late; but bear with me, I’ll get better. I promise.
After going back and reflecting a bit on my post that I did last year to close out 2017, I really wanted to keep the theme of yearly reflections going. If that year was “The Year I Finally Did Stuff” then I feel like this year could be categorized as simply, “The Good Year.”
The Beto Campaign
I was going to open this paragraph by saying that this deserves a post all on it’s own (and maybe eventually it will get it’s own) but truthfully I’ll feel this way about all of these categories.
The Beto For Senate campaign was a huge part of my year. I don’t remember when I first heard about Beto, but I know that in late 2017 I was watching a lot of his live-streams on Facebook. To me, he was the antithesis to Donald Trump, which was refreshing and comforting at a time when I started to question the sanity of the people around me.
I saw his campaign grow, and in late January, I drove an hour and a half to Austin to hear him speak at a 2 am event. That isn’t an error. Beto had a 24-hour-straight livestream event with events around the clock. Even in the early morning hours, he was still able to pack the restaurant with energetic supporters. Continuing on with my previous years’ theme of just doing things, I decided to get involved. After voting in the primary, I finally registered as a Democrat (fun fact, I considered myself a Republican in High School, and then a moderate after that), attended the county party convention, the state convention, and even volunteered and block walked. I attended events near me, and even tried to do my best to get my friends to vote. Beto didn’t win, and that’s okay. I met a lot of great people, some of which who came from out of state to help!
The Keto Diet
This is one I actually have written about.
I had steadily gained weight over the last few years, and I found myself coming into 2018 weight 150 pounds on the dot. I had grown fairly complacent with my appearance, and my regiment of exercise wasn’t cutting it. I did Keto for exactly 4 weeks, and hit my goal weight of 135 pounds. Controlling my eating wasn’t something I thought I’d be able to do, especially to follow a diet that gave up carbs and sugar.
Spurs Courtside Seats
I had actually written about this one before as well. Seeing the Spurs play from the first row, center court was something that I had always wanted to do, but really ddin’t think I’d get the chance to. Low and behold one fateful day, I was browsing Stubhub and found a single ticket, Row 1, directly in the middle of the court. To make a really long story short, it was a pipe dream at first as the ticket started at $1,200, but over the course of the day the ticket continued to fall as nobody was purchasing it. Finally 3 hours before the game, the ticket price fell to $500 and I jumped on it. Quickly l changed my clothes, called some friends to brag, and was on my way. The whole experience was pretty awesome.
The California Adventure 2.0
I’ve actually yet to talk about this one in detail, but I will soon enough. After the catharsis that was the impromptu trip to California I had taken last year, it was guaranteed that another had to be taken. I had felt like there was so much stuff I didn’t do the first time around, so I made sure to plan this one out a little better. Some of the things I made sure to see were SeaWorld San Diego, La Jolla, The Pacific Coast Highway and the Golden Gate Bridge. Amazing trip.
The Full Marathon
This is a story that needs telling. After some setbacks and not believing I’d be able to complete it, I finished a full 26.2 mile marathon. I think it was one of the proudest things I’ve been able to claim. Nothing beats finishing the grueling course to hear your name called out at the end. I’d like to think that I’ll complete another at some point in my life, but there’s some other challenges I’d have to get past first.