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Photo by Joel Darwin

I found this picture of me from last year when I opened Lightroom awhile ago. I cut my hair into a long bob this year and I’m beginning to forget what it feels like to have long hair. I used to have it really long — all the way to my rib cage. That girl in the picture feels like a different person and she probably is. My birthday is still three months away but I have a feeling that this is the only time be able to take stock of what a year this has been before I get swallowed up the holidays.

This has been one slow 2014. I felt like I kept hitting dead ends and I’m still feeling some regret over how I only managed to get myself business-wise this year. I didn’t travel a lot. I stopped partying and staying out late this year. I remember working many long nights and having more frugal days than splurge days.

And yet I would say that this was the year that my character was pounded, stretched, and plied in new ways yet again. 2014 is not yet over but I’m christening it as another “learning” year. There are some givens, like start caring about my diet, start waking up with the sun, start making a habit of sending out thank you cards/gifts, etc. But as always, the lessons that will make any year definitive are the ones that punch you in the gut.

Here are some of my lessons:

1. EMOTIONAL CONSTIPATION SUCKS!
   It’s really sinking in now that our threshold for insincere niceties does come to an end when you approach your 30s. We’re all learning that it’s not the picture perfect facades we try to maintain that define relationships — it’s more about how we pick ourselves up from mistakes and conflict. Mistakes and conflict are part of being human and it’s better we acknowledge that than pretend it only happens to messed up people. It’s scary learning how to be more confrontational and less passive aggressive, but the peace of mind that you get from being upfront outweighs the fear any day. Good friends/employers/lovers should be able to call you out, but always out of a good place and not from a self-righteous perch.
2. KNOW YOUR CURRENCY!
   One of the perks of being a hermit (getting older does that) is that I get to gauge my social circles from a safe enough vantage point. The people who still seek you out when you disappear from the face of the earth are the keepers — not the three hour brunch friends or the friends who have never seen you in broad daylight. Genuine friendship and community are my currencies and my time off allowed me understand that it’s not always the case everywhere else. A lot of groups operate on the circulation of social importance and cultural relevance and how they treat you can be directly proportional to how much you have of both. That circuit requires so much physical/social maintenance and the payoff is so fleeting.
3. TRUST!
   I don’t recommend my lifestyle to control freaks. I can never fully gauge how much money will come in every month and when it will arrive so I’m so grateful that I’m still living a relatively cushy life. It’s too easy to gripe about the things I don’t have and miss out on, but I make the rent and all my bills every month, I get to work in pajamas everyday still, and I live in a city that allows me to do so much. I’m just so amazed how it all works out — it’s like performing a gymnastics routine and not knowing if you’ll stick your landing, but good God, we do, we do! It’s trusting that makes the difference. Trusting makes you optimistic and when your energy is that good, it radiates to all of your tasks.
4. MY PATH IS NOT NORMAL AND IT’S OK!
   There are many scary things in life that I pursue without any hesitation, e.g., quitting my day job, getting married youngish, but what I don’t really talk about is how I go about things the reverse way. Normal people would wait and plan before they do big moves. But I’m weird so I do the big move first then worry about it afterward. My intuition is crazy. I will just know with all my heart that a certain decision is the right one, but then I’ll spend quite some time sitting in the middle of my new surroundings taking stock of what just happened. I’m still in that phase, that’s why I have a lot of feelings and I’m still shell shocked. It took me awhile to realize I work from the way out going in.
5. FILTER ADVICE!
   I learned not to take other people’s advice seriously when they don’t have good personal lives. Their choices have brought them to that point and I don’t want to be there. There are many “successful” people who have terrible relationships with their families, who aren’t kind/moral, who don’t have lives outside their industries, and who don’t hold themselves accountable to anything (read: ego problems). It works the other way, too. You don’t have to listen to me either! I don’t eat breakfast regularly! I laugh when people I don’t like mess up!

Sometimes I feel like I’m quickly approaching a juncture where my choices won’t be as irreversible as they once were. When I think of it that way, then it’s not so bad when life seems to go by in a glacial place. I’m really curious what sort of character wants to come out of me.

I have this bad habit with books and it’s something I haven’t shared with anyone. Sometimes I’ll read the last page of a book before I’m even done with it just so I can manage my expectations as I read. I want a heads up if someone I like will die or if my favorite character will get his happy ending. I take it back, I can be a control freak.

I have this tendency of wanting to see into the future. It’s like I fix my actions accordingly to the ending I’m headed at. How strange, isn’t it? I want to have a semblance of control because I do acknowledge that how my life plays out won’t all be on me.