In what is perhaps the most unsurprising announcement ever: March 2020 threw us and all our plans for a loop. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that for 99.99% of people in this world, 2020 is not going as we planned. For some, it’s mild annoyances. For others, lives have been changed, livelihoods destroyed, and families torn apart. To say it’s been a challenging time is an understatement. To sum up my feelings: 2020 can go f*ck itself, am I right?

Chris and I have lived in our house in Durham for almost 11 years. We were living in a rental house (about 4 blocks away from our house) in June 2009. 2008 had been a big year for us: I graduated law school, Chris started a new job, I took the NC Bar Exam (and passed!), Chris proposed, and then as soon as I found out I passed the Bar, I started a new job. And shortly after we started wedding planning for a September 2009 wedding. You know what was not part of our plans? Buying a house.

Once we started telling people about our plans, the first question we got was, “Why Hawaii?” And the second question was always, “Have you been there?” Up until mid-March, the answer to the second question was, “No, but we leave on March 31st to go there for 2 weeks to make sure we like it!” Obviously our plans, like so many others, were derailed, but that’s another story.

Already in this process, I’ve learned a lot. A lot about me, about Chris, about our marriage. And if there is one thing that I could share with people that I’ve learned so far it’s this: make your life what you want.

So here we are. We’ve figured out that what we have and where we are now aren’t working. Now what?