2020 was a hard year...

Full stop. Periodt.

I don’t need to touch on anything else really because that is the truth. Not just for me, but for millions of people. Often I do reflections and intentions, and I will still do that, but I’ve been struggling to *want* to write stuff out like I’ve done for years. I will. Writing is another wellness practice and I know if I don’t do it I’ll regret it. Now, it may look different than previous year, but it’ll get done. Writing is therapy for me.

2020 was a hard year. It was a year I’d been looking forward to: I’d just turned 30 and was embarking life as an newly unemployed, recently married jawn.

So let me run through some good:

• Went to a dermatologist the first week of 2020, and soon after my face started clearing up. It’s much better, but I still have to work at it.

• Went to Seychelles to celebrate Valentine’s Day w/ the hubz. I want to go back there because wow..it was beautiful and I need to learn about their culture & history.

• Started working part time as an assistant strength and conditioning coach at a private school.

• Started another new job <another part time gig> in maternal and child health systems.

• musologie grew- WAY more than I expected and wow, that has been a blessing.

• Celebrated 1 year of marriage.

• I re-realized I LOVE the outdoors: hiking, kayaking, paddle boarding and any recreational activity outdoors

• We adopted a precious beagle mix- Darcy Ann aka DAP. This is my first dog ever and wow, what a transition. She’s pretty great tho.

• trump lost the election.

• I reconnected with old groups while also connecting with some new people (thanks Zoom!)

• Verzuz. What has been your fav? I loved Jilly & Erykah. But Teddy & Babyface is forever a classic.

• TikTok, well social media. Black people joke way too much. I love us.

• I’ve begun gardening again and it a forever practice. Once again a wellness practice.

• Mutual Aid.

• PUZZLES!! I’ve done so many since march. From 300 to 1000 pieces. I have a 2000 piece puzzle READY for me.

Now let’s talk about some challenges:

• So many deaths!!! From January until today- so. many. deaths! Currently there have been 19.8 MILLION coronavirus cases and 343,000 deaths in the United States. WTF?

  • trump has been such a horrendous president. We are worst off because of him. (I’ll repeat these sentiments.)

• I realized I’m an extrovert. (wait is this a challenge??)

• Blatant Racism. The deaths of countless Black and Brown women and men at the hands of police and white supremacists and our countries lack of acknowledgment that it happens AND lack of action to fix how we’re treated.

• Fallout from trump doing an absolute abysmal job containing the virus in addition people not doing their part to minimize the spread has done irrevocable damage to small businesses, off wall-street economy and many other aspects.

• Some relationships with my friends have been altered. I saw a tweet which said, “i have friends that really isolated themselves in ways that hurt me and worried me. i had to find new ways to communicate AND still understand shit is WEIRD, and not personal. i also have friends i grew strong with. i love all my friends” [x]

  • There have been people I haven’t heard from much. People I’ve held close. And I know we were/are all going through our own stuff…I wish I could explain this better. Let me try: I will always reach out to a friend because friendship relationships are vital and maintaining them takes work, but friendships mean everything to me. At the same time, there’s some reciprocity that I need. Just a little. Some people communicate with me only on IG. Some only on Facebook. Some only via text, so forth and so on. I lost some friends this year. We’ll hang out and grab drinks on a rooftop in 2021 at some point. But, as Drake once said, “Nothing was the same.“ I tried not to take things personally, but how can I not if I rarely hear from you in 10 months? No response back? Nothing. Sais Pas

• My pop-pop passed away in June leaving me with no more grandparents.

• Looking at a computer for 3+ hours straight IS NOT OKAY. I caught a mean headache after a 7 hours work event.

  • Digital Wellness…I ebbed & flowed. I spent more time scrolling than i have in all my life.. yuck.

I am looking forward to this year. I think this year will be pretty challenging, but I have big goals for myself (professionally and personally) and I am ready to work towards accomplishing them.

2020, What a year.

2021, hello.

Share whatever you’d like about 2020/2021…It was a hard year.

XO-JM

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This Past Year, A Recap.

29th Birthday Dinner.

On December 28th, I turned 29, and I wrote a pretty lengthy blog post that IG refused to post. Bummer 🤷🏽‍♀️. But wait a minute, it could be my first ever blog post on museologie!! So it is. The IG post was a recap and quick reflection of my 28th year. I share quite a bit on social media (usually health related, me cooking or goofing around) and at the same time, I don’t much share much as it pertains to my private life. A big part of this happy + healthy (museologie) journey has happened in my private life & I’d like to share some of what that looked/looks like.

2018/28 was a good year, but at the same time, there were lots of changes.

1. My guy proposed in Marseille and now I’m a fiancé. We have a fun & interesting 10+ year journey that maybe one day I’ll share. Right now, we’re planning our wedding, but most importantly, our marriage.

2. Speaking of Marseille , I did hella traveling. It was a goal of mines and I, for sure, crushed it. I traveled to several cities in the South of France, went to Barcelona, Paris, Iceland and Jamaica. Iceland and Barcelona were the highlights and my favs- I’d go back in a second and of course I’d go to any francophone country parce que je parle français…vraiment, j’apprends tous les jours.

3. I started attending Epiphany Fellowship after “church dating” for a while and I truly like the community there. Although I haven’t joined, it’s my home church now. I hope to join this year.

4. Speaking of church, my relationship with God has gotten better/deeper. I have been working on improving that. I make time to go to the gym, watch all my comic shows (shout-out to the CW, Hulu & Netflix) and do all my extracurriculars , but I couldn’t find time to do my daily devotional. Something was wrong with my priorities, so I had to reshuffle and reset. In Touch, Rick Warren and the Bible App are my go to’s for devotionals. I also read Spiritual Discipleship with the women’s ministry and I definitely recommend it for a group. Long story short, I’m happy with where I’m at and looking forward to progressing. As my friends & I continue to grow in Christ, it’s been rewarding to fellowship with them..usually through text, but hey, it works!

5. BOC (Brothers of Climbing) now has two ambassadors in Philly, so in December, I started climbing again. For my birthday, my mother bought me climbing shoes and I cannot wait to be more active in the Philly climbing community. Yall, come join me!

6. In November, I started therapy again. I went in grad school and this year has been…. a lot and I started having a feeling I didn’t like towards the end of summer. I couldn’t shake that feeling for months and, in the spirit of putting myself first no matter what, I started. Now that I’m a few months in- many tears have been shed, I’ve had several epiphanies, numerous discussions about what’s going on + why and it was, by far, the best decision I could have made for myself in 2018. Highly recommend therapy to all persons out there in the world.

7. In 2017 I read the book: Boundaries In Dating. The main take away for me was that I needed to set boundaries in my everyday life- so I did. And last year I started speaking up when people overstepped. Now I’m not conflict avoidant, but I am not sure of anyone who wants to speak to their friends, partner, supervisors or family when they’ve done something that you feel is out of line. I’ve had to do that more than once and I’m appreciative to myself for setting & keeping boundaries. Listen, I gotta stand for my values-that’s most important.

8. I dabbled with museologie: started, then fizzled. I had a few group fitness classes this summer, collected contact info for the newsletter… started a bunch of things, but never fully completed anything. This year, I’m ready and museologie will be launched.

9. My Little and I have now been matched for almost 3 years!!

10. I became president of the Black Bigs Affinity Group for Big Brothers Big Sisters Independence Region and a board member for Young Involved Philadelphia. Both happened in Sept. I’m excited about these respective roles for different reasons. The Affinity Group focuses on recruiting Black folks to serve as Bigs and supporting current Black Bigs. For YIP, I feel (and was very honest during the interview and application process) that YIP doesn’t represent Philadelphians who have lived here their entire lives AND it definitely doesn’t represent the city’s diverse residents, especially Black and Brown folks who are active in Philly. And that’s not cool, so what’s up? Put me on the board let’s change it. Now I’m here. #hi.

11. Lastly, my girl friends...I have so many all over and I hold each one close. They inspire, uplift and encourage me. They are everything. A blog post will be dedicated to them in the future. But for now, 143. ‘Tis all. ❣️

More to come.
My only wish is that you strive to be happy & healthy as often as you can. I’m out. -JM

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Iceland

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Clark Kent.

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Proposal

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Monaco

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XiX

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