Dear Readers,
What a year.
2022 has been one of the most hectic years of my life. If you’ve been around for a minute, you know that my last official blog post regarding anything review-related happened near the end of February when I published my thoughts on Kristin Hannah’s The Four Winds. What you did not know was that I finished reading that novel in an airport on the way to my grandmother’s funeral.
I’m lucky that this loss wasn’t unexpected, but that doesn’t make the grief felt by myself and my family any less. It was unfortunately the first time my family truly got to spend any quality time with my now-husband and was a weekend filled with bittersweet moments. It may have happened months ago at this point but now that the holidays are upon us, this particular moment feels more prevalent than ever, and is not one I want to gloss over.
March and April were rather uneventful, outside wedding planning becoming an all-consuming part of my life. It somehow became my personality which I can honestly say I despised. It’s all anyone ever asked me about and it was all I ever seemed to talk about. When Monday would roll around and my team at work asked what I did that weekend, my only answer was “Not much– outside of wedding planning.”
May showed up and our world went wedding wild. Engagement parties, bridal showers, bachelor, and bachelorette weekends all took place between May and June. On top of our own festivities, one of my best friends was also getting married and I was lucky enough to be a part of her big day. Her pre-nuptial celebrations were added in May and July.
I’m quite independent and pride myself in making an effort to not let my relationships become an all-consuming part of my life, so feeling so lost in our wedding took a toll on my mental health. Wedding planning is a full-time job on top of your real one, so if you aren’t here for that, I highly recommend considering the elopement route (or a wedding planner if you have the budget for it). I wouldn’t change how my wedding went, but preparing for it wasn’t all roses like people want you to believe it will be. It’s a life-altering event and there are going to be ups and downs while you get ready for it, plain and simple.
Throw in another wedding in late July, my best friend’s wedding in August, and a friend’s 30th birthday trip in September — the wedding was upon us. Our marriage took place on October 1st and, I can honestly say, it was as close to perfect as I could have made it. I married my best friend in front of our closest loved ones and we threw one hell of a party afterward.
We headed straight into our (very needed) honeymoon in Croatia on October 2nd where we spent two weeks taking in the beauty, hospitality, and fantastic food Croatia has to offer. If the country is not yet on your bucket list, I highly recommend adding it.
From there we flew back to the States for ANOTHER wedding (we had two in October following our own) and suddenly it was November, I turned 29, and life started to feel normal once again. As I reflect on this year, and how my book blogging life went, I find myself asking two questions:
Q1: Am I going to make my reading goal for 2022 before the year is out?
A: Absolutely not.
Q2: Would I trade it in for how this year went?
A: Absolutely not.
I’m grateful to be back at something I love to do, but I’m even more grateful to get to do life with my biggest cheerleader and favorite human, my husband. I’m finally diving back into books as a reader and a writer — an activity I’ve put on the back burner for a while now. So, not much will change here (outside of, hopefully, my posting frequency). Here’s to the final weeks of 2022 – may they be filled with a lot more pages!
The Book Nook Chronicles 