Another year, another reflective post about that year. What happened this year? It's the first full year that I've worked at Company. The first full year I've been dating Other. It felt like nothing happened this year, though in reflection it is very different from last year. I wonder if the years being different will end now that I'm working.
Before I pull out my calendar and see what I actually did this year, let me guess. This year I actually did the do-a-thing-every-day-for-a-month thing each month. Though I wasn't always the best at actually doing that thing. I don't even know if I can remember the things I did. They were not especially interesting, I think. One of them was reading every day, one was gaming, one was trying to make a game, one was practicing Chinese, which I don't think I did super well because I mostly focused on vocabulary, and I don't think it helped, one was waking up super early every day so I would have some time to myself- this one I think had some good ideas in it but needing to go to bed super early in order to support waking up super early was not good for my ability to do things after work. For November I tried to do nanowrimo (national novel-writing month) I ended up with 20k out of the expected 50k words which is not amazing but about twice as well as my previous word count, so maybe that means next year I double this year's word count and I will actually have a novel on my hands. The others are a mystery.
I'm more afraid of my life vanishing from me now that I do basically the same thing every day. I started recording what I do each day on my calendar and I started a daily diary to keep track of what I did and what my feelings are. I still managed to not update my real diary or my blog with all my feelings though I had many. I suspect some of that comes from talking to Other. I write to process my thoughts, so if I talk (ie text) to Other about my thoughts, I no longer feel compelled to blog about them in order to understand them. I think I'm also just busier, like I don't want to blog when I'm hanging out with people and if I don't blog while I'm thinking about a thing, I just won't.
My mental health hasn't been awesome this year. Nothing serious. I've just been sad a lot. It comes on suddenly and stays for minutes or hours or days. I get engulfed by the sadness and become even more quiet and even less fun with people but perhaps also slightly more productive. Sometimes it stays until I get a new emotion to replace it. Or until I forget. Or when I get a night of sleep. Or half an hour to myself. I haven't done any official science on this, but I suspect that it happens when I'm tired emotionally. When I've been hanging out with Other's friends all weekend. Or when I'm tired and frustrated.
I think keeping a significant other around is at least partially to blame for this. I've always associated being in love with sadness. Not just sadness, of course. But I was sad a lot when I was with the First Other. I was super in love with them but also in high school and super stressed and also our relationship was not super healthy in retrospect. Also in-love people cry a lot? They're always doing things that hurt each others feelings. Or like not understanding each other.
Having Other means that I'm more vulnerable. I care a lot about what Other thinks of me. Maybe too much sometimes. I spend a lot of time now with people who are not my friends. They're Other's friends and we're friendly, but we are not friends. And people are exhausting.
I think the time has to admit that probably I do need to be a bit more careful with my mental health. I'm trying to make sure I have dedicated time for myself but its hard. I never want to turn down invitations to do things with people I like. A lot of the time I think this makes sense; I would rather sacrifice sleep and alone time than miss out on fun experiences. I guess I just need to find a balance between going to bed at 9 every night and never doing anything and never getting any time to myself.
In lighter 2015 news, I've been rock climbing and learning Chinese. I've actually improved a lot on the rock climbing front. Especially when I've been going with Other a couple times a week. Other has surpassed me in ability. I still need to try not to get jealous even though I know that Other's physical advantages are a big help. Chinese has shown less clear signs of progression. I still feel like i don't know enough to express myself even in simple ways. At the same time, I'm learning more than I would have by myself (ie not learning) so maybe it's worth it. We recently got a new teacher and expressed to her our desire to improve our conversational skills, so maybe things will improve faster in the future.
Um, I also worked a lot. Like a whole year. It was hard sometimes! I think I improved a lot though and am like friend with my team now so that's good. I worry that when I switch to a new team in the future I'll go back to being kind of terrible at talking to people. It's like an endless cycle of being uncomfortable with people I don't know.
Other and I have also been trying to be healthier together. We've been going rock climbing and we started using an app to track our food and weight and things. It's been working too! I had gained a bunch of weight since the summer after graduating when I was biking all day every day. I'm not back down to that weight, but I'm back to where I was in college. I don't even really notice what changes I've actually made in my diet except that I stopped eating all the free pizza at work.
Okay, let's look at the calendar, shall we?
- I saw Eddie Izzard and went to a casino! That was fun. I am not good at gambling. My inner mathematician always says 'But you'll lose! You win by not playing.' I did actually win about $7 on the slots. Mostly I just watched Other make a lot of money at a table. It was good. When we came home after was also the first time Other said they love me.
- I went to Maine with Other and Roommate and Roommate's Other. That was fun! We did hiking and made a nice dinner and had drinks and played games and saw a movie in a theater where we got a pizza and sat on a couch.
- Parents met Other! Twice! Being with Family is always strange and awkward. We're just kind of strange ans awkward people. I know Parents are kind of weird, but it still makes me kind of sad when Other sees them as kind of weird. Father is basically just an even worse version of me. I know it's not really fair, so I don't mention it, but that's how it is.
- Project Best Idea Ever! I totally forgot about this. For those of you who don't know, this is where you take your dinky little raft out onto the river to watch the fireworks for the Fourth of July. We got some rafts off of amazon that had good reviews but were like definitely made for children. It was definitely an adventure. We never even really got close to the fireworks. Also we lost a paddle. And row the boat was SO HARD. It may have been because the paddle was loose on our oar. I would totally do it again, but it's unclear if my compatriots would.
- Music festival! I went to one at it was pretty great. Other isn't into that sort of thing, but I went with Roommate and we found our other roommate and hung out and and saw concerts and it was lots of fun.
- For my birthday, Roommate and Other organized this big thing for me and cooked me a nice dinner and stuff and then surprised me by taking me out to a bar in fancy clothes where all my friends were hiding. Also Roommate talked to my non-local friends and got them to say nice things about me and it was really nice and I have their heads on my wall now and no I will not provide more context for that statement.
- I saw a bunch of concerts! It was pretty great though some of the concerts were not that fun. I have a better idea now of what concerts I will enjoy. Also, leaving early can be a totally great idea especially if you're not going for the headliner.
- I did a lot of puzzles! Like, several hunts. 4, I think? A good number. I really like having puzzles as a part of my life. I think the only time I ever actually organize something to see a bunch of my friends is to do puzzles.
- I took Other home for Christmas. It was really nice! We didn't do much though. I feel like I need to show Other Homestate so they can see how great it is. Homestate is actually a really important part of my identity and I worry that if Other doesn't understand my love for Homestate, then Other doesn't understand me. It is silly and unfair, I know, but I worry. We really didn't do that much, but we did see a play and malls and some other nice things.
Alright, let's talk goals:
1. Continue with the do a different thing every day for a month
2. See more plays: Let's get 12 this year
3. Read more books: We're also aiming for 12 even though that seems like not very much actually.
4. Climb a 5.11
5. Keep a daily log of my activities
6. Take care of my metal health
