Tag Archives: happy new year

End of 2023: Bookshelf of Hours

Happy end of the year! I hope you found 2023 fruitful and fun. It was an interesting year that left me optimistic for 2024.

I think I had a good year! It flew by. It was kind of a year of putting my head down and working hard on the tasks in front of me. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose! All work and no play doesn’t make me a dull boy. But also: there was play! Some days, I felt so so lucky. Lots of great adventures and some very fun hours. Lots to be found in the small spaces of the weeks and days. Lots of unexpected laughs! And little life-affirming conversations and interactions. My interior life was fulfilling and lovely.

Do you have goals for 2024? I haven’t really thought about resolutions this year. I think they come to me over the course of January. Some years I need a fresh start more than others. Like many, I wonder if a new routine can heal me. Probably?! Like everything, that remains to be seen.

I am excited to write more in 2024. Rereading some of my old work has inspired me to reach back into that corner of my brain. 2023 left me feeling stuck in one style of poem. I wrote this while looking at the ocean:

I shelved a version
and took out another:
the book of _____ 
on the shelf of _____.

I am looking forward to 2024 and feel good about it! Staying optimistic at this juncture. (Maybe, for once, I am looking forward more than I am looking back and reflecting.) I hope you have a nice new year! May 2024 be filled with good luck for all of us!

End of December 2022: Time and Time Again

It’s the last day of the year and time has never felt more vivid. Happy New Year’s Eve!

How was this year for you? Some have said that 2022 has felt like a continuation of 2020 (AKA the Lost Year, AKA a year that didn’t happen). I don’t think this sentiment rings true for me, though the pandemic and its effects are still widely felt. I’ve found that the people around me have had a renewed commitment to living a certain way this past year. I’m not really sure how to describe it more precisely, but there is a different energy. [I am trying not to use the words “vibe” or “vibes” but it turns out that this is very hard?]

I time-travelled recently when I was traveling home from a trip. I left Singapore at 8:00 AM local time and arrived in Seattle at 8:30 PM local time in the same day, but had travelled for 31 hours in between. OK, maybe time zones don’t count as time travel. But I was contemplating the year during those hours spent in limbo between time zones. I felt time stretching around me while the hours were simultaneously condensing. Though I guess I was so tired I would have believed a lot of things.

Yesterday, I ate breakfast with Anne, one of my oldest and best friends, and we talked about resolutions. They are so hard to set and keep for some reason! I think there is some science about why they do not work. But there is definitely still value to goal-setting. At this point in life I am still just trying to figure out how to do it better. So no resolutions to write about at the moment. Sorry.

Tangential sidenote: Something else that makes me very aware of the passage of time is the Vanity Fair Billie Eilish interview that comes out every year. Change probably just feels more palpable for young people, especially for someone who is in the spotlight and thus feels pressure to keep reinventing. I love reflecting (hence this entire blog) but I don’t necessarily like reliving the past. Nor do I like watching videos of myself or hearing my own voice. But that’s probably a different thing.

I wish everyone reading this a great 2023! I have a feeling it will be a great year with many challenges and new revelations. This blog will be continuing into the new year (because I forgot to turn off auto-renew for WordPress yet again) so stay tuned. Or don’t! Change your whole life! Or don’t 🙂

End of December 2021: Being

This picture is from a forest in Western Washington, east of Seattle. It is full of evergreen trees and ferns and mushrooms. I missed being there so much. I missed the way that the forest can make one feel so small…

End of the Month meets the End of the Year and it has definitely been a year. I have been exchanging remarks with friends and family and we seem to be in agreement; the year passed by unbelievably quick, but also unbearably slow. It was a year that didn’t happen, but it was a year that contained it all.

Not to be melodramatic, but I feel a sense of defeat at the end of this year. Personally, there are so many things happening in my life that I am excited about and very grateful for. But on a global scale and on a generational level, this year doesn’t feel like a victory, nor do I feel particularly excited about another year. I feel tired, but have I really done anything but live my little life? Not really. On one hand, I feel so spoiled. On another hand, I feel that our generation has earned the right to be discontent about whatever. I should probably stop writing in generalizations.

Just speaking for myself now: I think there is such value in slowing down with things and being present. I love a good dissociation session, but taking stock of the moment brings such a deep peace and an acknowledgment of how I feel in my own body. I don’t know. It’s hard to describe. But after living through so much, what can we do but just be? After the best of times or the worst of times… it’s back to being.

Thanks for reading this year and for being here. Thanks for indulging my wannabe blogger self. This personal journal/monthly update/vanity project has been a really nice way for me to process the passage of time. If you liked it, I will be even happier. And if you really liked it, you’ll be happy to know that we got picked up for another year of End of the Month baby!**

**by this I mean that WordPress automatically billed my credit card for another year

SHL ❤