Last Fall marked the 7th anniversary of this blog. I’ve covered a lot of life in this time frame.

I feel like I have been “through it” the last few years. I’ve lost my nuclear family, my dog, some friends. I’ve had so many health issues and I’m only 55. I did not expect this in my 50’s. Sixties yes, 70’s definitely. But not my 50’s.

The beautiful thing about trials and tribulations are that they forge you into someone new. A stronger, wiser version of yourself and in my case a person much more at peace. Part of this might just come with the aging process in general. Regardless of the cause, I am 100% here for the effect, because it is kind of magical.

My perspective is forever changed with each challenge faced, each battle won, each trial weathered. And sometimes, weathered is all you get. There is no win, no overcoming, you just survive and that, in and of itself, is the win.

This is where 2024 finds me. I still love exploring and learning all things wine, but I also have developed a passion for yoga. Specifically for Yin yoga and for brining gentle flow classes to other people, like me, who have orthopedic challenges. I find that social media interactions drain me rather than fill me up. Blogging in general is an old fashioned form of communicating and no one takes the time to read them. I used to joke that the only person who read my blog was my Dad. That’s right, my Mom didn’t even read my blog. They are both gone now, so it is hard not to feel like any effort at blog posts are wasted time. Except that I love to write and I find some joy and definitely peace and clarity when writing.

The irony of this new state of mind is that, while I feel very much at peace and perhaps for the first time in a long time hopeful about the future, I am also still wandering, not quite sure where to point my feet and apply my effort.

I had started thinking about going through yoga teacher training in 2021 and I had hoped to go through training in 2022 but I had a total hip replacement and decided that 2023 would be the year. Inflammation from Covid and diverticulitis flare ups had me seeking digestive solutions that resulted in major pelvic reconstruction in 2023. Fine, 2024 it is. Except I’ve retorn my meniscus and sometimes my knee works and sometimes it does not. Not ideal to begin teacher training.

Currently I have the notion – I like to call that the Holy Spirit – that perhaps I am not meant to teach yoga. Maybe I am just supposed to deepen my own practice and incorporate into my own life. Prior to this last year, I would not consider this. I am a Type A when I put mind something and I like to get things down. I am not a procrastinator. Within the last couple of months, when my knee really starting giving me fits again, this tickle of an idea came upon me and for the first time in my life, I’m ok with not trying to figure it out for myself. If I am meant to teach yoga, then it will happen in God’s own perfect timing, not mine.

Although I feel these things, it is still hard for me to be still. To not have a plan. To not forge my own path and figure it out. Especially considering my age, time is really not on my side. In 2020, during the mandatory lockdowns that the world experienced together, even though there were so many horrors, I felt as though the stillness of it all was a gift for me. It was the first time in my life I stopped. I tried to be still and listen. I believe those few months were a period of great healing for me. Now, I seem to be in another period of being still and listening, but this one feels like growth rather than healing. I am learning to trust the universe again for the first time in at least a decade.

I want to continue to write, but on many subjects, not just wine. My intention was never to be a critic or to tell other people what they should or shouldn’t drink. That goes against everything I stand for, on the subject of wine, and anything else. I want to write about what I’m thinking, feeling, doing. What I’m eating. About how the sky just looks particularly beautiful today, or maybe about how my new shoes make me smile. I will always be fascinated with human connection and energy, which also happens to be my favorite way to talk about wine.

I’ve turned off “auto-renew” for this website, so after 2024, I will not continue this blog. For the next 12 months I will be writing about the amazing, the awful, and the mundane and I hope that someone out there will read it.

Where does 2024 find you?