Feast of Christ the King 2021

 For the past several years, I've used this weekend's upcoming feast day to reflect back on the year. 2020 and 2021 have brought about a lot of things for reflection. While 2020 was unprecedented and hard in many ways, I did come to appreciate the slowness of it. 2021 started off with the same stillness and slowness as winter and a pandemic will bring you, but once things started to open back up in March and April and more people became vaccinated, the busyness of life went back to "normal". Except. Things are not yet normal. People are still getting sick. We are still quarantining with Covid exposures. Even with vaccines and boosters. Quarantining and wearing masks and remote meetings and teaching is a way of life now. And it is still pretty exhausting. 

Yet, I am grateful for all that I was able to do this year after the anxiety and seclusion of last year. Here is a look back on the last liturgical year: 

NYE was very low key with me and literally two other friends doing an at home dinner since Covid was at its height and we didn't have the vaccine yet. 

Winter is always rough, but 2020 taught us about using Zoom and FaceTime to socialize. This definitely carried over into 2021 until the vaccine. 

Our ticket back into society! Vaccinated Feb. 2021!

First winery trip since Covid in March 2021

Friends at Outer Banks for Spring Break 2021

Getting to celebrate my 40th how I dreamed with close friends and family vaccinated with a winery weekend was a definite highlight of 2021. 

Getting to attend Easter Vigil in person after having a quarantined Holy Week in 2020 and a quarantined year of RCIA was also a great joy. 

Celebrating a full year of teaching in a pandemic with the best staff a teacher could ask for in June 2021.

Still sticking with domestic travel for the summer of 2021, I treated myself to a spa weekend in the mountains and lots of road trips like my Delta Blues trip and visiting friends and family in OH and PA.

Above: Somewhere in Mississippi, Below: another winery, this time in PA with a bestie

Celebrating mom and dad's 70th and my 40th this summer in Ohio

I discovered a lot about myself in 2020 and 2021 and one of those things was that I *am* in fact into Renaissance Faires :) Went to my first one in MD in September. 

I was super stoked to do typical fall things again like fairs and hunting for decorative gourds with friends.

Had a mini-reunion with some college friends in DC in October.

And we got to have a few more join us at Halloween this year. 

Grateful to get back to somewhat "normal" with wine and friends this year, but still very aware of how our lives are still not quite the same. 

Feeling super grateful for vaccines and health and some of the busyness of 2021 and feeling hopeful for 2022! All of the projects I started in 2020 like my podcast  and blogging and connecting with other Catholic social media content creators continued throughout this year.  And shout out to St. Joseph whose year it was this past liturgical year in the Year of St. Joseph. He came through on a novena I did in March and will continue to see what his intercession will bring as we round out this year. 

St. Joseph, pray for us! Happy Feast of Christ the King!

Peace,

Julia