Britt’s 2023 Wrapped, pt 1

We are almost one full week into 2024 as I am typing this. Tomorrow will be Sunday, the 7th day, the last day of the first week of 2024. Tomorrow I’ll go on a date to continue my search to find true, lasting love. A partner who I can rely on, support, grow with, and feel safe to be myself around them. Even if it’s not this date tomorrow, I really hope to find that in 2024. Wish me luck! More on my goals for 2024 in part two. For now I want to dive into the first six months of the transformational year 2023 was for me.

January

I started the year like I had the two years prior, by doing a hike on New years day. It was a solo hike and my goal was to go mushroom “hunting” (really I just wanted to see, touch, and photograph some shroomy babies) and chase waterfalls despite TLC’s advice. I wrote about and photo-documented the thrilling adventure which resulted in my getting rescued by Marin SAR, I highly recommend you read it. :)

I really hit the ground running in January. I went snowboarding in Park City, Utah with two friends and met up with another friend who lives in Salt Lake City. This trip was during the Sundance Film Festival so I also got to see a great film, Magazine Dreams, and hear from the director and his, now disgraced, star actor, Jonathan Majors. We also went on a snowy hike where I nearly killed my friends by continuing on a fool’s journey to get to a hot spring. We did make it and I got to dip in my first ever hot spring which was nice, but the risk to our safety wasn’t worth it and I won’t do that to my friends again. My best friend and I got into a major argument during the trip (not related to the hot-spring hike, but I bet that didn’t help!) and had a falling out that I thought was going to cost us our friendship. It didn’t, thankfully, and I’ll share more on how we rekindled it in part two.

I went to see Chris Lorenzo at the midway with a group of friends and danced my ass off. I also started a hip-hop dance class at Dance Theatre Mission which is the first and only business I have ever seen offer reparations for Black people. They’ll forever have a special place in my heart for that.

I took a pole dancing class with my good friend and it was such a powerful, sexy, vulnerable, and fun experience. I did it at a time where I wasn’t feeling the greatest about my skin or body, but knew I’d be in a safe space and safe company. I am so glad I did it and I hope to have more pole dancing classes in my future.

I started an in person book club with two friends which grew to six people by the end of the month. I also went to Oakland’s Lunar New Year parade for the first time and met up with one friend briefly before joining my board game friend group for the rest of the parade and then lunch at a Vietnamese place later in the day. I included some random selfies and photos of other good times not mentioned. :)

February

I stayed in Sacramento with my best friend and we went snowboarding together in Tahoe. I continued hip-hop dance classes. I buzzed my hair off for the third time in my life. I organized an event for Black History Month at work and honored myself and my family during the presentation. I went to Glowfari at the Oakland Zoo for the first time and I highly recommend you go too when it’s back in December 2024.

March

I started off March with my first trip to Vegas to celebrate a friend’s birthday. I spent less than 48 hours there and learned one should never spend more than that amount of time there. What a draining place 😩. It was really fun to drink, dance, get hit on, and dress up with a group of beautiful women.

Back in SF I saw KANGDANIEL, one of my favorite K-pop artists, at the Regency Ballroom with a friend and was thoroughly blown away by his vocals and dance moves along with his dance group. I truly haven’t been this impressed by a musical production since I’ve seen Lady Gaga in concert over a decade ago.

I celebrated a friend’s birthday Rocky Horror Picture Show-style. Then flew home that same night to begin my own birthday celebration with family. Upon landing at home I made it my first mission to get a bagel because California could never recreate this culinary delight that has the east coast in a chokehold. I was also home to celebrate my sister’s promotion to the highest rank one can attain in the military. She is the first woman in her company to ever reach this ranking. What a bad ass First Sergeant Allen! ♥️

Back home in California I celebrated my birthday THREE more times. Once with a small group of friends who treated me to my first Izakaya sushi experience and drinks. A second time with my friends who baked me a delicious and absolutely stunning birthday cake and gifted me with a really fun and beautiful board game, Photosynthesis. My last celebration was at my place where I got Mexican food catered and asked my friends to come in their best swimwear attire. We had an amazing day soaking in the hot tub, playing in the pool and laughing in the sun. I was gifted so much I cannot ever begin to try to list them here and aside from the material things having such a large group of people rally around me to show me their love and support meant the most to me.

I started therapy in person with a Black woman in San Francisco. Little did I know then, but this would be one of the best decisions I made all year.

April

As I restarted my mental health journey I felt hope and purpose returning to me. I had always wanted to go camping since moving to California and while I technically did so twice, I still felt like I didn’t get a proper experience. The first time I “camped” I slept in a tent on the driest, hardest, most boring campground in San Luis Obispo as an overnight stop while on a roadtrip to San Diego with an ex in 2020. The second time was during LIB (Lightning in a Bottle) music festival in 2022 where I brought every comfort possible. I decided that while those experiences counted, they weren’t what I imagined camping in CA to be. I didn’t want to waste another year not going camping because I couldn’t find anyone to go with me or because no one invited me, so I decided to go it alone! I turned the trip into a weekend adventure with my first stop being at Monterey Bay Aquarium where I tested out my new GoPro. My second stop was at Refuge Spa where I cycled through lavender steam rooms, saunas, hot tubs, and cold plunges and ended the day there with a delicious deep-tissue massage. I then drove over to Pinnacles National Park where I camped, learned how to use my Soto camp stove, and learned how to store fuel properly as to not blow up my car. 😂 I wrote about and shared photos from my life-changing camping experience here.

I went up to Moore Creek Park, near St. Helena in Napa County, to help extend the newly renamed Yip Trip Trail, aka the Madrone Trail, a single track that has been entirely built by volunteers. I did this with the trail-building group, V-O-Cal I’ve been volunteering with since 2022.

I re-homed my two emotional support cats, Drizzy and Zelda, whom I raised and loved for 2 years. It was a tough decision and those closest to me understand why I had to do it. I am glad to know that they went to an incredible home and that I still get occasional photo updates from their new mama. I learned to forgive myself and move on. I continued my positive behavioral activation with dance classes and random fun adventures with my friends. I was healing.

May

This month I’d like to just describe in pictures and two words: consistency and fun. :) I also created this very website during this month and re-vamped my professional site: britt-allen.github.io.

June

This was my last month of dance class. I honestly didn’t think I’d keep up this new hobby for half a year. Dance gave me so much… a connection to my body, a creative outlet, a place to use my brain in new and challenging ways, exercise, community, and a celebration of my culture.

June was my becoming. I felt like I was finally stepping into my womanhood, feeling comfortable in my body and skin, taking responsibility for my happiness, connecting socially with friends, and continuing to heal old wounds from my childhood, past relationships, past therapists, past employers, and so on. I started group therapy with a group of queer BIPOC people which opened my eyes and heart to the experiences and intersectionality of these communities.

I went on my first month-long mental health leave from work. I had done one before, but it was only three weeks and not well planned. For this one my therapist and I came up with a thorough plan of action to keep me accountable and with the reminder that I had space and flexibility to veer from that plan and to give myself grace for when I inevitably would.

During that month I got outside more – including an urban hike to Oakland’s Chapel of the Chimes which I wrote about, increased my exercise, rebuilt my yoga practice, went on my first solo concert experience to see one of my favorite R&B artists – Erykah Badu, and went on two trips.

The first trip was my first ever group camping trip with two people, one friend and the second person who became a friend by the end of that trip. We camped in Tahoe National Forest, hiked along the south portion of the Yuba River, and dipped our bodies in its crisp and pristine waters. It was one of the most wholesome, funny, and adventurous trips I went on in 2023.

I have yet to finish writing my blog post about it, when I do I’ll link to it here, but for my last week of my mental health leave I went on a trip to NYC with my best friend. During that trip I met with an old co-worker/friend, began dating again just for fun and made a friend out of it, indulged in all of the tasty culinary experiences NYC has to offer, saw a Broadway play, and so much more. It was the perfect ending to a month of stretching myself in new ways, crying, healing, regressing and progressing. It was one of the best trips I went on all 2023.

Enjoy the last gallery below and stay tuned for part two where I’ll recap and reflect on my second half of 2023.