Catching Up With A Cleveland Friend

Yesterday, I headed over to Bed, Bath and Beyond, where I had the pleasure of catching up with my Cleveland-based friend Ryan.

Ryan was in town sampling his delicious Inca Tea. Ryan and two of his college friends were inspired to create Inca Tea after hiking a 16,000 foot Peruvian mountain trail. During their journey, they learned about an ancient Incan tea recipe including antioxidant rich purple corn.

As a longtime tea lover, I love that all Inca Teas are non-GMO and made with 100% natural ingredients. Each individual tea bag is also twice the size of what you get from other brands. Inca Tea currently offer four varieties–black, mango, peach and my personal favorite, the top selling spiced berry. New flavors coconut ginger and chamomile will debut next month.

Ryan’s visit to sample Inca Teas in NYC and New Jersey coincided with a significant anniversary — five years to the day since my Great Dating Blitz.

Ryan was one of several fun, friendly singles I met in Cleveland, the first stop on my eight-week, eight city adventure. As we reminisced and caught up about life, work and dating, I couldn’t help thinking about how much I’ve grown because of everything I experienced during that eventful trip.

I’ve written and spoken a lot about what I learned of both the similarities and differences of dating in each city on my itinerary. And I’ve shared often one of the major takeaways from the trip — that the best thing about being single in New York is also the worst: there’s no pressure to settle down. But the greatest epiphany I had is one which has taken me all of these years to fully act on.

After my first dating blitz ended (a European sequel followed a few months later), I realized that a pair of ghosts — my deceased parents and first love Mark — were holding me back. I was so stuck on mourning those losses that I had little emotional bandwidth to move forward. I was also living in the past (literally) in a home defined by furniture, art and knickknacks inherited from Mom and Dad.

Now, at long last, I am completing what I started five years ago. I am embracing the present, buoyed by a decluttered mind and heart and newly redecorated home. I am appreciating exactly where I am in life, mindful that it’s different from where I expected to be but no less wonderful because of it.

A few days ago, I came across this quote–

“The only time you should ever look back is to see how far you’ve come.”

Amen.