Journal Entry 1 / September 18, 2019

When I first started this blog over five years ago, I wanted it to be about travel but I also wanted a place to share my personal thoughts about life and just figuring out how to be happy. I immediately became terrified that nobody would find that type of thing interesting though and because of that, I have always been afraid to write a journal entry type of blog post. I convinced myself that my life was more or less boring unless I was traveling and that posts filled with practical tips and advice about traveling would be way more useful to anyone who stumbled onto my blog.

There have been a number of things I’ve been afraid to do on my blog in the past, like: draw a hard line on an opinion, or write deeply personal stuff, or include anecdotes about my friends in case they get offended or didn’t like what I wrote about them. I guess in a nutshell, when it comes to my writing I’ve always been a little bit of a coward. Even things I write in a personal notebook that I never intend on sharing with the world can get crossed out in fear that someone, somewhere knows I wrote it. That’s resulted in my posting less frequently than I would like to and made me afraid that my blog just doesn’t have what it needs to stand out in the blogosphere.

I’ve done my fair share of reading about how to be a better writer and the general consensus is that I need to knock all that shit off immediately. So here’s my attempt at doing just that. I plan on posting something a little more personal every week on my blog, something that will resemble a journal entry. Hopefully it will bring back the personal aspect to my blog that has been a little lost in my post planning recently.

So here goes.

I turned 32 last week. Not to sound too self involved but I love my birthday. I don’t love it because it’s a day that everyone in my life spends celebrating me (although that doesn’t suck). I love it mostly because it signals the end of summer and I get to look forward to my favorite time of year in New York. Oh and I also share my birthday with Emmy Rossum which I get far more joy from than I probably should.

New York City is already teasing me with signs that fall is just around the corner. My windows are open and a fan is filling my apartment with cool air from outside as I write this and I am giddy at the thought of the leaves falling in Central Park just a couple blocks east. I know most people hate the end of summer but I absolutely live for the next few months in the city.

This year I’m even more excited than usual for fall and winter because back in March I moved to the Upper West Side with my boyfriend Ryan and our dog Chewy. This is the first time in my life I’ve lived in Manhattan and I can’t wait to walk through Central Park in the middle of the first snow fall, when it’s still powdery fresh and most of the city is hiding inside. Having a new season to look forward to is just one of the reasons I love New York City so much.

I’ve been keeping pretty busy the last few weeks which is always good but can make me feel overwhelmed if I start packing my schedule too full. I am at my very core a homebody and as much as I love getting out and exploring the city and planning trips, I need my downtime at home to recover, sleep in, or just watch some trashy TV. This morning has been one of those mornings where I just drink a couple cups of coffee and throw on Gilmore Girls because there’s something about Lorelai and Rory that always makes drinking coffee a little better.

I had a perfect week celebrating my birthday last week and can’t thank everyone in my life enough for doing what they could to make it special. It started with a fancy vegetarian dinner early in the week at Dirt Candy with my boyfriend and ended with a small party at my favorite country bar in the city. For those of you who don’t know, I’ve been a vegetarian for a little under a year now and it’s so nice to live in a city that has such amazing vegan and vegetarian restaurants.

I plan on eventually sharing a post about why and how I chose to implement a vegetarian diet, my challenges in trying to be vegan and mostly how I plan on approaching travel as a vegetarian. But we’ll move on from that topic for now.

Last night I took my annual trip to Yankee Stadium to watch the Yankees play the LA Angels. I go every year to see my home baseball team play, not because I’m a baseball fan (because I don’t keep up with it at all), but I enjoy having that little piece of Southern California in New York. I’ve never been a huge sports fan in general but I have a sort of emotional attachment to the Angels and can never quite jump ship to support a local New York team. It’s become a sort of yearly tradition for me.

In other news, I have a pretty big event coming up in October that I’m both excited and extremely nervous for. I signed up to run my very first half marathon on October 19th and hit my training schedule hard this week. I used to run regularly when I lived in California but was never disciplined enough to take on a big commitment like a half marathon. I’ve also gotten extremely lazy in exercising and wanted something to motivate me to get off the couch and move on days that I didn’t necessarily have to.

Another thing you may not know about me is that I suffer from very chronic sciatic nerve pain. It’s something that started flaring up a few years ago and comes and goes in various degrees of pain and discomfort. Right around the time I signed up for the Brooklyn Half Marathon and implemented a training schedule I started feeling some of the worst lower back and butt pain I’ve ever experienced in my life. Anyone who suffers from this kind of pain will know what I mean when I say there were mornings I couldn’t even sit comfortably.

With the half marathon almost exactly a month away and my back pain subsiding immensely I have tapped into all the motivation I have to get back out and pick up on my training schedule. It doesn’t suck that my training ground gets to be Central Park, and on Monday I finally ran the full six mile loop around the park. It was challenging but I’ve never felt more proud of myself after a workout. Even though I know I’ll be able to make it through the 13.1 miles in October, I really want to push myself and be proud of my performance. I’m looking forward to getting the first race behind me and signing up for others in the future. Although I have no official plans to run a full marathon, I’m also not ruling it out yet.

In terms of travel I have kept it pretty light this year. Moving to Manhattan took a good chunk of time and money and turning our new apartment into a home has been a big priority for me this year. With the exception of my trip home to California earlier this year and my summer road trip to Maine, I’ve really enjoyed staying in the city.

My next trip will be a small one to Boston in a few weeks. I love Boston so much and haven’t been back since I moved to New York City, which seems like such a waste considering it’s such a quick bus ride. I’m extra excited for this trip because it will be Ryan’s first time there and I’ll get to take him to some of my favorite places and it will also be the first time I’m not in Boston in the dead of winter. I’ll get to actually enjoy walking through the old streets without layers of clothes, soaking up the American history that’s everywhere and learning how to use my new 35mm lens I got for my birthday.

I’m looking forward to sharing a post about that trip and have a bunch of New York City based posts I’ve been working on for MONTHS that I want to get just right before I publish them including: my favorite Mexican restaurants, my favorite things to do in Prospect Park and some of my favorite unique bars in the city. I’m especially looking forward to continuing to touch base weekly on a more personal level and hope that whoever reads this blog can find something in my personal thoughts and struggles to connect to.

I think that’s enough for now though.

Love, Krystal