Hi, I’m Kristie. Thanks so much for taking a look at what I’m working on! I’m a wanderer at heart…meaning I’m trying to find the balance between going all the places, doing all the things, and meeting all the people while also reaching my professional goals, paying my mortgage, saving for retirement, essentially doing the adult things. By day, I work as a nurse. I’ve been working in health care since 2008. Most days, my job is as fullfilling as it is heart breaking. I could tell stories of crying with a patient on the worst day of their life, to being handed a Smuckers jar filled with urine and asked to “just test it. I swear I’m not using drugs,” to everything in between. But this blog is not about nursing. Witnessing the Covid pandemic through the unique eyes of a health care worker changed my life. It shook me into the realization of how short life truly is. And not just in terms of life and death. But in that at any given moment, life as we know it can be turned completely upside down. I was rockin’ the adult life in 2020…had worked my way through college and paid off my debt, had a stable job, a house with a few fun toys in the garage, and fulfilling relationships with friends and family. It was a good life. It IS a good life. I also realized I didn’t want to live the same year 75 times and call it a life.
In the summer of 2021, after the Covid surge had ended at my hospital, I set out on a year-long travel challenge during which I traveled to one place out of state per month that I had never been before. After spending over a year working overtime, learning new policies, volunteering in departments I had never worked in before, and listening to everyone and their mother’s opinions about a pandemic that nobody knew anything about, I needed new sights. I needed to re-engage in things that were not pandemic related. I needed to restore my faith in people. At the advice of a good friend, I kept a journal of my travels. I haven’t shared it with anyone. I haven’t even re-read it myself. Typically, I’m not a big sharer about my own life. I’m the listener. I’d rather hear about yours. But my travel challenge led to another adventure…a year-long bucket list of things I did with my now 14 year old pup. And that led to another adventure, my list of 100 dreams. And during each of these adventures my loved ones asked questions. And they shared my adventures with their loved ones. So, I’m sharing this with you all, for the wanderers out there, in the hopes of inspiring you to wander as many places as you can!
