Dear Reader,

The thought of trying to be excited about things for this year have been rough. The month of December had made me realize that life can be taken away sooner than you realize. It’s hard to think about being happy about anything when you are going through the grieving process of losing a close friend, who helped bring excitement to your otherwise boring life. Not to say that she was the only person who could bring me joy, but she was one of the constant ones inviting you to events and just being an overall joyful presence everytime you would see her. It made me realize that it’s time for me to find something that makes me excited again and not rely on someone to do it for me, or in general, I just become that joyous person loving life. Thus starts with me making plans that will bring me joy.

Recently, I impulsively signed up to participate in a 31 mile walk, jog or run fundraiser for Wounded Veterans in January where you do one mile every day. I remember back in middle school when I was doing cross country and track and how much I loved running. I haven’t done much running since then, but I realized this was the opportunity I needed to get back into it. I got myself a gym membership and I am doing my best to make sure I complete all 31 miles by the end of the month. It’s not easy for me to do because my every day routine consists of me laying in bed until work playing games on my phone or talking with friends, but I am working on making sure I make time to go even if that means doing more miles another day. I am hoping that after I complete this challenge that I will continue to go to the gym or just in general go take a run outside because I love the feeling that I get afterwords.

Besides running, I am challenging myself to not buy so many things I do not need. This will be my biggest struggle because it’s so easy to see something I like and just impulsively buy it because I feel happy about it at the time, but that happiness doesn’t last and I feel compelled to buy something else to feel that happiness again. However looking around my room I see all this clutter of stuff that could have been left at the store and constantly having these thoughts of why did I buy this? Does this really bring me joy? Most of the time it really does not bring me joy, but I like it too much to part with it which is a big problem. With the rising costs of food and living expenses I need to focus on being more decisive on what I am purchasing and make sure it really has a purpose before buying it. With this goal in mind I am hoping to save more so I can plan for life moments that may be a once in a life opportunity instead of having something others also have in their closet.

Speaking of life’s moments, I am excited to see where my relationship is going to go this year. In September of last year, I met my boyfriend. Neither of us were wanting a relationship, but we has this instant connection that we wanted to explore further and felt like we would regret it if we let this pass us by. We became friends first, but it wasn’t long before we decided to start dating and being official. It’s not easy, we don’t live close to each other so seeing each other is hard but we make it work. We are also working on growing as a people alone and together which makes it hard, but neither of us currently had a desire to call it quits. I am hoping we continue to grow and learn together for this year and longer because this is the first relationship that I am not wanting to run away scared when things go bad. I’m taking it head on and hoping this eventually leads to marriage and possibly kids as the end goal this is my this year and future years plans that I will do my best to keep.

I am going to fo my best to work on these goals. These are not just this year goals, they are also future years goals but this is the first year I am going to make an effort to achieve these to my best ability. I will look back on this and hope I made a lot of progress compared to where I am now. I am greatful to my friend for sharing her love of life with me and hope she is cheering me on as I progress through my goals to become more excited about life like she was.

The blessings given to me by the word gratitude:
Giving spirit
Relationships with others
Able-bodied
Trusting others when in doubt
Imagination
Tough situations with lessons to learn
Understanding others without judgement
Desire to be a blessing towards others,
Enjoying the life I have been given, even when some days are harder than others.

Dear Everyone,

Have you been so comfortable with how your life is that the thought of doing anything else made you anxious? Well, that is me in a nutshell. The thought of changing anything in my routine freaked me out. I’m not saying I’m like squidward in the episode where he gets so annoyed with spongebob that he moves to a community where they do the same thing everyday. I mean just doing something that requires some extra planning to make sure I can and am willing to do it. In this case I am referring to the fact that at 22 years old I was so afraid to drive that it gave me lots of anxiety that just sitting behind the wheel of a parked car sent me in a major panic, but I was able to let go of that fear when life decided I didn’t have a choice.

In 2020, I was in college working on finishing my Bachelors degrees. Hated being stuck inside doing zoom classes, but not missing getting up early to catch 3 buses to take me to school. On the brightside, with classes online I didn’t have to worry about spending so much money on food and project materials. It made it easier to save money for something else which at the time I had no idea what I was saving it for.

At the end of spring quarter, I had to call an ambulance for my mom one day. It was really scary. One minute she was here the next she was not acting like herself. The best way to describe it is like those with alzheimers disease where they just don’t recognize you and are lost in some sort of alternate reality. It really freaked me out. Thinking I’m going to lose my mom, but luckily I didn’t. She’s been back to her regular self for a while now on medications to help her out, but June through September of that year she was in and out of the hospital in that state so scary trying do summer classes and be worried about her. I hated having to take the bus down there and it taking hours to go down there and back home.

It was the turning point I needed to have to force myself to use my extra funds to pay for drivers education. I know as an adult it wasn’t needed, but I knew if I didn’t pay for classes I wasn’t going to learn and do this unless a stranger was the one teaching me.

The times my mom wasn’t in the hospital and more herself, she was able to take me out to practice when I wasn’t taking classes or working. It was scary. The first time with the instructor I freaked out over barely touching the brake petal and the car automatically stopped. The instructor was really nice and kept me calm enough to continue driving. From then on I just kept getting better and more comfortable with it. Even my mom was impressed with me.

I got my liscence that summer and to this day am driving around to work or taking my mom places because her medications won’t allow her to drive anymore. While I am not happy about my mom needing to have some mysterious illness mimicking alzheimers to push me in the direction of letting go of my fear of driving. I am grateful this happened otherwise I probably would still be taking the bus and still fearing being behind the wheel of a car today. Sometimes we just need that push to get out of our comfort zones and getting rid of fears to do things we are scared of to push ourselves into letting go to help us become stronger and not only living by what is comfortable to us. Otherwise we will never grow.

Dear Self,

Everytime you hear the word respect the first thing that always comes to mind is Aretha Franklin’s, “Respect,” such a great and powerful song. You always pay tribute to it because it’s something as a young child you didn’t have. Of course as a child you were more interested in her spelling out R-E-S-P-E-C-T in the song then you were about noticing that you were treated more like last nights dinner laying in the trash can unedible, instead of, the freshly made dinner just nicely laid out on the table before you started eating it. As you have grown up, the song still resonates with you today and it’s time to feel more like the fresh from the oven turkey then the the turkey bones laying in the trash because you, self are an amazing female who deserves the recognition of being treated as a main course sometimes and not just the trash that in general nobody wants.

As a child you didn’t notice that adults telling you to be quiet when you were so excited to share about this cool toy you found at a yard sale was considered them not respecting your right to talk. Yes, there is a time and place that in general you shouldn’t be overexcited and loud about something like in libraries where people are trying to do homework or read a good book, but a yard sale? This is where you should voice your opinion on things because this may be something you can have at home to play with. Not that the adults you are with care. They are in their own world getting what they want and what they think you would want but never asking you or allowing you to voice your opinion on things that impact you. It’s like they have an idea in their head of who you should be and everything else you want to say or do doesn’t matter. You were the the imperfect chair at the table being covered by a perfect cloth to show that you were the ideal child with hidden desires that to others was to remain unseen.

Years have passed and now you are a teenager. This time you can voice your opinions on things like what to wear and buy for yourself as long as it’s reasonably priced, but when it comes to actual opinions on bigger than you ideas on life no one is listening. It’s like being trapped in this idea I need to be into myself like other teenagers my age and focus on what the latest movie is out and when I’m going to see it. The things that are not important to me but should be important because this is the age I’m supposed to care about trends and dating and not about worldly issues that will affect me as an adult. Oh well! I would rather have a seat at the best table surrounded by others than the messy uncleaned table were we put the things we didn’t like and never talked about.

Nowadays as an adult in her mid twenties, it is important for me to be heard as a person with her own opinions. My childhood days of being unheard and the lack of respect of my opinions in my teen years are long over. I am at the point in my life where I am making myself heard. There’s no more of the shushing or talking over me because you don’t like what I am saying since it’s not relevant to how you want the conversation to go. I want to share my thoughts and not just be a table where people put their own dishes on me and expect me to just accept them as they are and not say anything about it. I will be loud. Raise my voice over you trying to silence me because you don’t like my opinion, or the direction the conversation is going. I’m not saying that everyone will want to agree with my opinions on things but I will make sure that people at least listen to me and allow me to contribute something to the table instead of being the table.

No one should ever feel like they are unheard and should be given the chance to speak their mind even if others don’t agree with your opinion. Not everything you say will be the hamburgers at the barbecue sometimes you will be the relish that only some people will eat on their hotdogs, but you should never feel like you are as a whole person the moldy leftovers in the fridge that need to be tossed out because they are useless. You are the freshly put out food at the table made up of a variety of dishes that has a lot to offer those who come over and sit or stand at the table. Even those who decide not to be at your table because there are too many dishes they don’t like should respect those dishes because without them, they don’t know that there is something to not like, but they can appreciate that there’s variety in this life that makes more room for them to have a seat at a table with food they enjoy then fighting over the last slice of pizza because everyone’s interested in it but there’s not enough for everyone which makes it harder to be heard and figure out who actually deserves the last slice when we can all just share it among ourselves.

Dear Teenage Self,

You spent too much time worrying about friendships that don’t matter now. Sure, at the time they meant everything to you. Where are those friends now you may ask? Living their own lives as best as they know how. Possibly have forgotten about you. It doesn’t matter the specific details what matters is that right now they are shaping you to become who we are currently.

Yes, even your oldest friendship with your best guy friend ended when he decided not to tell you that he was marrying the love of his life. Went as far as ghosting your texts. The only reason you knew about it is because his parents kindly posted about it on social media. It will be the biggest heartache to date for you, but trust me it was the wake up call you will need later. That doesn’t mean I want you to abruptly end this friendship now because you do need it until the inevitable end trust me on this.

Currently, you are spending more time focusing on yourself. You are probably wondering why your 20s self is focusing on yourself? Do you recall, at all, the last time you really focused on yourself and not worried about being a people pleaser to keep friendships alive. Trust me when I say you don’t figure out you haven’t thought about your needs until you’re at your lowest and wondering where these friendships went wrong. You of course start recalling the red flags you ignored and realize this time is about you and what you want to do. Not to say, you have forgotten about still being a kind and considerate person with people not always treating you right, but you are no longer trying to keep people in your life if they don’t want to stay.

It’s been a huge weight lifted off your shoulders to focus on what you like and your constant growth as a person now that you don’t feel the burning need to make sure everyone else isn’t bothered by what you thought about something. Standing up for yourself has been so much easier and not letting people from your past walk all over you and basically putting you down when you try to stand up for yourself, which makes you feel obligated to change your mind. You will be the person with her own thoughts and feelings that you won’t be afraid to share anymore. You also won’t care about others opinions about it either.

I’m not sharing this with you to hope you change yourself because that would change me and I am happy with where I am in life. I have a couple close friends and that’s all I need. I just wanted to let you know your sacrificing your own self desires as a teen was a blessing because once you become a 20 something you have the freedom to make these changes in your life, whereas as a teenager you felt obligated to follow a crowd and not think about yourself. Life feels like you are still stuck in a small box unable to breathe. Even though, that’s when you finally got a bigger box to breathe in with having more freedom it didn’t feel like enough. Not until now. I hope you don’t change. Everything that has happened, happens to help you grow as the person you will eventually become and will continue to become as your interests change throughout life.

You will still be that awkward girl who hates crowds and thinks having many friends is too much, but at least you are actually trying to work on seeing those red flags in people. Stay how you are and don’t change please. I do want to exist and I can’t exist if you change yourself.

Your older mid 20s self