I’m sitting in the car with one hour left in the venture back to Columbus from my weeklong festivities in Washington, D.C.
What a week.
I was blessed with a lot of fun opportunities and surrounded by a lot of fabulous people. I got to party with Ludacris, donate my time to a homeless shelter and test some donated computers, mingle with the masses at the inauguration, discover great new bars, see old friends, make new friends.
Being around the energy of the inauguration was a humbling experience. Met a couple he flew over from Ireland because they were so excited to see America take a new direction. (Well, that’s what I think they said, they were speaking awfully fast with their adorable accents and using a lot of Irish slang I didn’t understand a bloody word of, but they were smiling, haha) I met a young black man from Florida who never thought he’d see a black president in his lifetime. I met a woman from California who flew out to see the inauguration, had tickets, didn’t get to see or here anything, but didn’t regret a second of the travel.
And then there was me. Amazed to see the country pulling together. Excited to think about the progress we’ve made, when only 45 years ago Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the “I have a Dream” speech. And now we have a black president. The country’s still not perfect by any means, but we’re progressing. We’re learning. We’re trying.
Angela and I recorded a video on our drive back highlighting our experiences. Enjoy!
Anyway, as I am prone to do when I have a new experience, I’ve learned some things about myself and turned them into goals for the year. Cheers.
1) I want to travel more. Hell, “more” might not be the right word since I don’t get to very often. I’ve never actually left this time zone, let alone this country. My geographic triangle goes east of Columbus, OH, south and west of New Haven, CT and north of Myrtle Beach, SC. Seriously. I love adventures, I love new places and new people. And I know people all over the country, so I really need to start utilizing this network for fun and opportunity. Granted, with my current schedule traveling is tricky, but my goal for the year is to go on at least one trip every other month for the rest of the year. So if you’re traveling somewhere fun, let me know and bring me along. 
2) I want to continue to meet new people. This ties back into the traveling one. The more people I know, in more places and industries, the more I’ll gain intellectually, professionally and for my general entertainment. Fast Friends provided me a lot of tremendous opportunities and put me close to a lot of great people. I need to continue that. My goal for the year is to meet at least one new person a week one-on-one. This one should be a bit easier.
3) I want to get more involved. Those of you who know me probably laugh out loud at the thought of me taking on any more than I already have on my plate, but shrug, that’s Cheryl for ya. I’ve got a lot of political and personal issues that I no longer do anything about - I want to change that. I’m going to be working with the state democratic party on some social media and marketing efforts, which is a start, but I’d really like to get back to some independent media and issue organizations. I don’t know what goal to set for this, but um, I’m gonna try.
4) I want to blog more. I have it set in my head that I can only post a blog if I have a lot to say. It’s not quite that the need to be well thought out or heavily edited because, little known fact, I’ve never gone back and edited a blog before I post it. I just write and hit publish and correct typos as people call me out on them, haha. But the three posts I’ve put out there this week, this one included, weren’t insightful social media posts. Or really insightful posts at all. They just… were. And people seemed to like them, And I’ve enjoyed writing them.
