👋 Hello everyone!
Well, 2023 was not a great year for sending newsletters. Or posting on Instagram. Or reaching out to friends. It’s been a tough one for us, but we’ve come through it ready to face a new year and a new life. Updates and such:
Losing our best friend
A few days before Christmas, we had to say goodbye to our sweet cat, Little. She gave us a good year and a half of love after her diagnosis with renal disease, so I feel like we can’t complain, but our hearts are so sad. She was totally fine until she wasn’t, and we made the painful decision to let her go. We feel like she stayed with us through our hardest times, through illness and sadness, loneliness and stress, big life changes and everyday heartbreaks—but things are looking up, we’re ready to move forward, and she decided her job was done. So thank you, sweet bunny cat.
Our first trip to Asia
In October, we finally made a long-time dream come true and flew across the world to South Korea. It was amazing. Arriving in Seoul was like popping into a dream world from the future. The WiFi is fantastic (even on the subway), the cafes all have seriously good coffee and beautiful, delicious pastries, the bus stops have phone chargers, the elevators allow you to UNPRESS a floor button (!), the public transportation is reliable and easy to use, the convenience stores are actually convenient, and it’s so safe and comfortable.
Of course there are negatives (the gender pay gap is atrocious, the beauty standards are unattainable, the smog can affect an outdoor day, the “hurry hurry” culture is stressful), but we still fell in love with the city. From the tiny streets of Ikseon-dong to the lovely corners of Yeonnam-dong, we wandered and ate and people-watched and soaked up every moment. We’ll be back in Seoul again later this year, because it just fits us so well.
A year of sobriety
We decided to stop drinking on January 1, 2023, and it’s been a year of incredible change. We felt like we had soaked up (literally) all the alcoholic experiences we were interested in—we had taken mixology courses, tasted a ton of wines, enjoyed margaritas on patios, made friends of bartenders across the globe—and we just felt done. It has changed our lives in more ways than we could have imagined.
Aside from never having a hangover (wow), sleeping better, feeling better, losing weight, gaining time, saving money… we’ve had to do the hard work of not numbing uncomfortable emotions, coping with work and life stress, re-imagining our hobbies and basically facing the world without the calm assurance we used to get from a glass of wine. We’re stronger and happier, but it has been difficult to feel the loss of friends who were always behind the bar or across the table. I have no regrets, and I’m still uninterested in drinking, but I am ready to move on from the sobriety transition phase into a fuller life. That means being brave, trying new things, and letting go of my identity as a cocktail fanatic and spirits nerd.
Joining the A-Team
This past summer, I joined Access Ventures full time as Chief of Staff. That means I get to do all the things—podcast production, event planning, accounting operations, marketing admin, copy editing, travel and scheduling, project management, human resources management—but that also means that I have to do all the things. It’s a lot, but the people I work with really believe that the staff are the most important part of any organization, so I am cared for and supported every day. I’ve worked for a lot of organizations, many of which I now know were poorly run and not focused on the wellbeing of their own staff, and my team at AV blows them all away. I’m so happy to have found my people.
Random screen grabs lately
That’s it! Thank you for reading—hit reply and tell me what you’re up to.
--Crystal