My good years and bad years seem to come in waves.

In order for She’s in Love with the World to even have a “Year in Review,” I need to bring it all the way back to mid-2009, when I first decided to take the leap into the unknown world of travel and blog writing. I was laid off, the economy was bad and I was pretty damn directionless. Ask anyone. As 2009’s close drew near, it looked as though 2010 would be the Year of the Awesome for me, and for the most part, it was.

2010 started off with a bang – a fantastic evening, just seven days prior to departure, with the person I love most. We had a fabulous, classy evening all dressed up and blissfully ignorant that in a mere week, we’d be separated for an undetermined amount of time. And that week flew by quickly. Before I knew it, Andrea and I were off on a plane to Bangkok, beginning the best way I’ve ever spent six months of my life.

The Highs of 2010:

• Maintaining She’s in Love with the World and even watching it garner some attention from other great bloggers and travel websites. Unfortunately, for this high, comes the low of me letting slip off my radar upon my return to the States. I worked hard to build my blog up, and after I deemed myself “far less interesting” in my domestic setting, I put no work into making myself interesting and let it fall to the wayside. Regardless of my actions, writing on this website throughout 2010 was one of the most rewarding aspects of my travels and I loved sharing my life with each and every new friend (and old) that came its way. It also allowed me to actually keep track of what I was crossing off of my brand new Bucket List, of which this blog has still only seen the first half!
• Volunteering in Southeast Asia. Working at the Future Light Orphanage with four other incredible young, solo female travelers was one of the most rewarding and impactful experiences I’ve ever had. The beauty of Angkor Wat doesn’t light a candle to the beauty of the shining, smiling faces I saw each and every day on site. This feeling was exacerbated when I began to bring clean water, fresh food and smiles to those incarcerated in the Immigration Detention Center in Bangkok with In Search of Sanuk. No price can be put on the amazing feeling of bringing some relief and happiness to others during such an exciting period of your own life.
• The new friends made around the world. Facebook has proved to be a wonderful, magnificent tool for maintaining contact with friends made across the globe. Not only am I still in touch with the fabulous network of travel bloggers out there, but it’s possible to stay friendly with friends I made elsewhere – on a slow boat along the Mekong, in Al Azhar Park in Egypt – everywhere. Each person added to my journey in a unique way, and I’m happy to have them along for future journeys to come.
• Motorbiking down the coast of Vietnam. Despite a pretty horrific accident and some badly bruised legs, this trip still ranks on my Top 3 travel moments of 2010 when people ask my favorite part. It was an exhilarating, stressful and exciting day throwing me out of my comfort zone and into a whole new realm of extreme possibilities.

The Lows of 2010:

• The job search from July through October. It took me quite some time to find a job, even one with which I’m not in love. The economy didn’t do much rebounding as I had hoped it would while I was gone, and it took me a long time to even land an interview for a full-time position. I feel as though I had to lower my standards to get a job and, in my secretarial position, I have come to miss journalism more than I ever could have imagined.
• The money woes that come after a big trip are a lot to come to terms with. Of the $16,000 I left for Thailand with, pretty much all was depleted except for $2,000 reserved for bills, car payments and other incurred costs upon my return home. The difficulties in my job search did not help my severe lack of funds, and only now – at the start of 2011 – am I really beginning to replenish my bank account.
• Reverse culture shock and unexpected changes in my old lifestyle. Certain aspects of my former life certainly took a hit when I first came home. It took a little while for my boyfriend to warm up to possibility of us again, after his rocky visit to Thailand (Hi, Mike. I love you!). My family had all moved on without me to a certain extent, and became quite used to my absence. There was less freelance work for me at the newspaper once my column ended, some other personal issues, and reverse culture shock (read: absence of street food and motosais) made a belated appearance, sending me into a pretty big tailspin for the end of 2010.

So what’s up for 2011? This year I brought in the new year on a cruise ship with the flu, fast asleep by 12:20. Like I said, my good and bad seem to come in waves.

After some lofty resolutions last year, I’m anticipating a pretty slow beginning of 2011. The year will likely be filled with more monotonous work in order to continue replenishing my bank account in preparation for big changes in 2012, whatever they may turn out to be. I plan to stop biting my nails once and for all (after many failed attempts).

I’ve learned that not every year can be golden the whole year — even the best years have their lows – but I’ll make the best of the excitement I do have for 2011. I have a bunch of friends’ weddings to look forward to that will involve some travel, tentative plans for TBEX’11 in Vancouver to finally put faces to names of bloggers I interact with almost daily, and more time with those I do love at home.

Happy 2011, everyone.

Love,

Sarah