Looking Back on 2022

Looking back on 2022 leaves me breathless. 

It wasn’t a bad year, per se, but it was a year of massive change and growth – after a year of massive change and growth, which followed a year of global pandemic upheaval. We know 2020 was a sh*t show. I was supposed to move to Los Angeles in July of 2020 to start grad school in August, but thanks to the pandemic, I stayed put in Chapel Hill and started film school online. I finally made the move to Los Angeles in January 2021, did spring semester online despite campus being right there, left my longtime job at UNC in the summer, started a new one a week later, and then, got certified in Pure Barre, acquired a second puppy, and miracle of miracles, got to start my second year of film school IN PERSON. 

You tired yet? I am, and that was just a quick rehash of 2021.

If you would have told me in January 2022 that I would be ending the year as a Tennessee resident, I would have laughed and laughed. I was happy in Los Angeles. I was excited about the spring semester. I still hadn’t quite found a community, but I was teaching a lot of Pure Barre and catching a lot of sunsets at the beach. It had only been a year, after all, and most of that first year was spent with Los Angeles still heavy on the COVID restrictions. 

As I sat journaling my goals for 2022, something odd happened. Between a travel goal and a financial goal, I heard a voice, as clear as though someone were sitting right beside me, say ‘Move to Nashville.’ I long ago learned to listen to that voice, so I wrote it down in my journal: 

Move to Nashville. I don’t know why I wrote this, just felt like I was supposed to. 

I carried on with my goal setting, dismissed the ‘move to Nashville’ bit. I had just moved to Los Angeles, after all, I had one more year left of grad school, and I planned to be a high-powered development executive. No one was going anywhere. 

Yet… 

I had two photos of Nashville on my 2022 vision board, because it felt like they should be there. I figured it was because I was planning a spring break trip to Nashville during the first week of March to meet up with my best friend and explore some favorite old haunts. Except between January and March, something changed. The shine of Los Angeles wore off. I was frustrated by how difficult it was to find a community, make friends. The pressure to look a certain way felt heavy, but not as heavy as the pressure to believe a certain way. Even church felt like a TED Talk that referenced the gospels instead of, well, church. As for the cost of living, well, paying seven dollars a gallon for gas sucked – it sucked a lot. 

When the plane began its descent into Nashville’s airport for that spring break trip, I burst into tears. I mean that in the most literal sense. It was an early-morning flight from LAX, and I was perfectly fine, reading my book as the green of Tennessee came into view. And then, as I started to recognize landmarks, I just – burst into tears. Tears that felt like sheer relief. That same voice that said “move to Nashville” spoke again. This time, it simply said “home.” By the end of my five days in Nashville, I knew in my bones I needed to move back. 

March through June was hard. 

From the outside looking in, life was grand. I was doing great in film school, teaching a ton of barre classes, and still catching all the sunsets. Except that wasn’t the case at all. I was deep in the throws of high functioning depression. If I wasn’t teaching, working, or at school, I was probably sitting in my living room, alone, sad, and struggling to find any sort of motivation. I gained weight, retreated more into myself, and at times, felt downright hopeless. 

It wasn’t a good time. 

I was applying for jobs in Nashville and not getting anywhere. I was miserable at school despite the consistently good feedback (I’ll expand more on this in a post soon as I’ve received a lot of questions about my experience in film school). My job was fine, but it didn’t challenge me the way I needed to be challenged. All those sunset walks? They were one of the only things keeping me afloat. I’ve always been able to find peace by the water. 

At the end of May, I threw up my hands on my Nashville job search and decided to take a full week off – no looking for jobs, no applying for jobs, wouldn’t even allow myself to google apartments in Nashville. The constant rejection or else radio silence was taking a heavy toll on my mental health and I just couldn’t do it anymore without consequences. I was in a weird place at the time, wanting to move back to Tennessee but planning my days as though I had every intention of enrolling in my third and final year of grad school. I told my closest friends it felt like I was leading parallel lives – the “real” one in Los Angeles, and the “I want this” one that put me back in my beloved Nashville. 

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Memorial Day weekend, I sat down with my journal to write out my frustrations. It may sound weird to you, but sometimes “something else” will come through when I’m writing. My handwriting will literally change, as well as the POV. Instead of writing as “I,” my pen will turn to “You,” as though someone is speaking directly to me. It’s how I get a lot of guidance from the Holy Spirit. It’s wild when it happens. This particular time, I wrote the following in what turned out to be nearly two pages of this guided writing: 

This is the beginning of the end of your time in Los Angeles. You will apply for the job you will ultimately get this weekend. Keep going. Keep believing. Have faith. You’re almost there. I promise.

I applied for the job I have now on Memorial Day. 

I was offered it exactly one month later. 

I arrived in Nashville after another five-day cross-country drive on August 1. After a long day of moving what I’d crammed into my SUV into my apartment and dragging my brother to every Target and HomeGoods in Nashville, I checked Facebook on my phone where I was prompted to look at my memories from previous August 1sts. Exactly one year earlier, I’d posted this: 

Well then. 

The last few months of 2022 have been – quiet. In a good way. I’ve laid low, adjusted to being back in Nashville, taken some time to recover from a chaotic, topsy turvy start of the year. I’ve gone on a couple of dates, revisited some of my favorite places, stuck a toe or two out into the community. I’ve also had a few moments of frustration where I say things like “Okay, I’m here, now what do you want me to do?” to God because I feel like He got me here and now… what? That’s me, impatient, and Him, asking me to be patient, to trust. 

But mostly, I laid low. I recovered from several months of my mental health being in the tank. I went through the adjustment and all the weird layers of emotions that come with moving across the country, leaving a program I wanted to so desperately be a part of, a career path I thought I wanted, the friendships I made on the west coast, on and on… I’ve found my footing again. I feel at home again. I feel like I belong again. 

I feel like I’m ready to take on more in 2023 – as odd as that may sound after reading this post. 

But more on that in another post. 

So yeah, looking back on 2022 leaves me breathless. It was a hard year in a lot of ways. It was a year where I learned a lot about me, about who I am, what I want, what I stand for, and what I need out of life. 

Looking back on 2022 leaves me breathless. 

But not in a bad way. 

In a “I did that” way. A “I’m resilient” way. A “Wow, God really showed up for me, didn’t He?” kind of way. 

2022 left me breathless. 

Here’s to learning to breathe deep again in 2023.