My Decade in Review

Hi everyone! I know it’s been a while since my last post. I took an unplanned hiatus because the holiday stress, new job adjustment, and winter anxiety really got to me. I loved reading other people’s decades in review, so I thought when I eventually returned to blogging, I would write a decade in review post. Not only am I sharing what I did and learned over the past ten years, I’m also sharing some new things I learned about myself within the last few months. So keep reading on to see Ariel through the ages!

New Years 2010: This was the infamous night where I learned what happens when you drink too much soda. I hung out with my friends (Amanda pictured here) and wasn’t the best at staying up late, so I drank a lot of orange soda, sprite, and coca cola to keep myself caffeinated and awake for midnight. Later that night, after my dad picked me up, I ended up puking my guts out. My mom thought (for YEARS) that I secretly drank alcohol. Sadly, I wasn’t some rebellious freshman that discovered vodka for the first time that night. I literally just drank too much soda and had a caffeine hangover the next day hahaha. 

Summer of 2010: Ran the Baltimore Ten Miler for the first time with my two best friends, Gillian (left) and Amanda (right). I remember being DEAD tired and having a bloody toe during the latter half, so it was a bit of a painful race. Little did I know that I would begin to love long(ish) distance running and would sign up to run this race again several more times!

Sometime 2010 – 2011 I think: I don’t remember where this was taken, or what I was doing, but I was great friends with a lovely girl Lia (who is now an awesome musician). I used to take more pictures like this when I was just hanging out with my friends. I kind of miss doing that. 

Winter of Sophomore year of high school (early 2011 I think): Went on a snow run during a big blizzard with the girls on the cross country team. The cross country team was really close, which made the experience so much more fun. I cherish all of my wonderful memories from being on the team all throughout high school. These kinds of memories make me smile the most 🙂

Summer after sophomore year (2011): Celebrated my sweet sixteen with my birthday twin and best friend, Tyler. We had a pool party and invited our closest friends. It was always so fun hanging out with Tyler and we love having our birthdays so close together.

Winter of 2011 (Junior year): I cut my hair short the summer before this picture and initially loved it, then wished it would hurry up and grow back. This was when Amanda and I became really good friends with Grace, our third bizrat. I think we were walking around DC/Georgetown when this was taken!

Winter of 2012 (Senior year): Took a mother-daughter trip to NYC with Amanda and we lived out our gossip girl dream (or at least mine haha). I remember getting so excited about this trip that I drew up a map of gossip girl filming locations and had it laminated. It wasn’t nearly as exciting seeing the places IRL as I thought it would be haha.

Summer of 2013: Graduated high school!

2014: started community college. Had a hard time this year because all of my friends went away to universities and I felt behind because I wasn’t in the same kind of institution as them. Now that I’m older I can see how valuable any kind of college education is and I’m actually really thankful for my time at community college. It made me a really great student and I learned better study habits that helped me excel at University of Maryland a few years later. 

I also visited a lot of my friends this year – I went to University of Maryland, University of Virginia, and University of South Carolina. Also took another girls trip to New York!

2015: Did some more traveling this year (mostly to Canada haha). Visited my friend Lia in Montreal, visited Niagara Falls with Amanda, ran a 15k in Toronto, and went camping on the Bruce Peninsula coast in Canada. Also visited Florida and New York again.

2016: Took my first trip to Europe! Amanda and I went to England and Ireland. I saved up money from this really hard snow shoveling job and used that to buy a plane ticket. It was so rewarding (and very tiring!).

2017: This was a busy year! Graduated college, traveled to Vegas for the first time for my 21st birthday with my mom, hung out with a really sweet summer roommate, visited Austin for the first time and fell in love with the city, went to my first winery in Charlottesville, hosted my annual Christmas party, and went to Atlantic City for my girlfriends birthday, and started dating Ryan! Phew, this was a fun year. Oh, I also went to San Diego with my grandfather.

2018: Searched for jobs and worked a lot at Merle Norman. Also went back to Austin for my sister’s graduation. The summer of 2018 I started my first full time job, which I hated and only lasted for a month and a half lol. This was the year that my major stress started. I felt so much pressure to be the perfect human after college (as in having a full time job, be moved out of mom and dad’s, be totally financially independent, etc). I didn’t cope with it too well and found myself stressed about my stress.

2019: More stress and more stress. On the plus side, I got really into blogging and my sister got married. I started an internship and became full time and left at the end of October to start a new job that I like so much more. Then, holiday stress and winter anxiety really got to me. It’s weird because even though I was under more short term stress in college, I never felt as unsettled or anxious about the future. I think the lack of a consistent routine really got to me and I felt anxious about not knowing what or where I was going to be in the future.

2020: So, what have I learned about myself?

1. I learned I love true crime anything – TV shows, documentaries, podcasts, movies, wikipedia articles, etc. 
2. I’ve become a lot more accepting with my stutter – more on that topic in a later post!
3. I’ve become ok with the concept of less is more – less makeup, less hairstyling, less commitments. Less is more can lead to a very fulfilling life. 
4. I hate the unknown (hence the bad stress that started after graduating college).
5. I would actually prefer to talk in person or over the phone than over text. My thumbs are starting to get tired lol.
6. There’s music for everyone of my moods.
7. I love spas and need to schedule more spa days 
8. I still live at home AND THAT’S OKAY. My time will come. 
9. We have a puppy! She’s a whoodle – wheaten terrier and poodle mix. She’s a hellion but she’s damn cute.
10. I’m content with two glasses of wine or two beers and calling it a night.

So, that’s my decade in review! I spent a lot of time going through photos and I’m really glad I did this. It forced some self reflection that I wasn’t planning on doing originally. Here’s to an awesome 2020 and another memorable decade!