To be honest, my 2017 wasn’t great.  In fact, it’s probably the only year ever that I felt actively unhappy about things that were going on in my life. I did have a lot of great moments and good times of course, it wasn’t like I spent it in Azkaban wtf.  But something was missing.

I actually feel like a different person this year, and I don’t feel like I even know myself all too well anymore.  So it’s hard for me to try to write down what I feel, but what hasn’t changed is my inclination to record down personal parts of my life so here. Imma try.

This year, what changed?

I gained new friends, reconnected with old ones.

I always knew I was extroverted but this year confirmed it lol.  I got a lot of happiness from making new friends and hanging out with new groups of people.  I reconnected with old friends, some from college days, and remembered what being young felt like wtf.  A friend whom I had cut out of my life for the better part of a year didn’t give up; she kept trying until I saw what it’s been like in her shoes, and realized I wasn’t such a great friend myself.

I love my mom friends but this year I realized that I also needed to move out of my comfort zone and connect with people who are different – who would challenge me emotionally, intellectually, and humorously wtf.  Talking to more different people also caused me to start studying my life and what I wanted out of it.

I started work on Colony

Colony will always be Fatty’s pet but I’ve enjoyed working on it.  Not going to lie, work put an immense strain on our marriage.  Fatty is a very different person at work and as it turns out, so am I wtf.  He started off very abrupt when talking to me about work, and in turn, I got super defensive about everything.  I also had a lot of trouble juggling motherhood and the household, my blog, and work, even though I was on flexible working hours.  My brain is already like a sieve on normal days but now I forgot everything wtf F everyone around me’s life.  I got wonder if I had inflexible working hours, would I be better at managing since there was more structure?  I will never know.  I’m still struggling now – I write to do lists but sometimes I even forget to add items to the to do list wtf shit me. T3T

But I enjoyed creating the physical space of Colony.  Conceptualizing and working with the team to see it come to life – Colony is beautiful and we made it happen! 🙂  It made me feel like I could do something else besides just writing blogs or handling social media wtf.

I applied for a project that I felt passionate about and got rejected

Yea this was like exactly one year ago.  I submitted an application for something that I felt strongly about and got rejected.  I appealed and that got rejected too wtf.  It sort of set me adrift for a while – I had my heart set on it and I felt lost and unsure what to do next.  That’s why Fatty got me onboard to help out with Colony actually – to give me something to work on.

I actually started posting less on social media

Especially Dayre.  I used to post on Dayre every single day without fail but sometime this year I stopped.  I’d go weeks without updating and only within the last month or so have I been trying to post more regularly.  Being away from Dayre actually made me feel like less people were reading and I could be more honest with what I wrote.  So I try to write more to more or less document the humdrum stuff that happens every day that will matter to me ten years down the road.

But the reason why I took this half hearted break from social media is that I felt half hearted.  The truth is, this year I didn’t feel I had aim or meaning in my life.  Even the kids – I think I’m still a devoted mother but most of the time it was like I was on auto pilot mom mode.

So I posted less.  It wasn’t even that I was in introspective mode or whatever, I just didn’t feel like I had anything worthwhile to share.

What I’ve realized this year….

That I stopped learning

Sure, I learned a lot about building and renovation.  I learned some about interior design and how some old man contractors can be so sexist wtf.  I learned how tough it is to work with a spouse wtf.  But I have stopped challenging myself.  I stick to the easy routes and my comfort zone because it is just so easy.  This year I realized I stopped pushing myself and so I stopped growing.  And it is because….

that I’m sooo complacent

You see, my life is pretty damn easy.  Some might call it tai tai life wtf and it wouldn’t be that far off the mark, despite me being very defensive about the term wtf.  I don’t work to earn a living; I work but very very flexibly, and the compensation I receive is more than the time I put in to be honest wtf.  I don’t need to do housework.  My full time job is purely the kids actually, and that takes up most of my non sleeping hours.

My inertia to even get started on anything is so big because I just have it so easy.  There’s no reason or drive to push me to do something more.  Coupled with the fact that being a mom is a full time job, it’s so easy to say I don’t have the time and I would be justified.

I am just lazy and complacent wtf.  I realize that.

that relationships are a work in progress

Relationships are tough.  To be very honest, I think I’m good at connecting with people, and clicking with them and making good friends.  But I’m also lazy wtf.  Most of the time I coast along because I’m good with people, and the people I love also love me back wtf.

But relationships are hard and they need work.  What you have today could very well morph into something else tomorrow and it’s up to you to put in the work needed to maintain it.  I’ve also realized that I don’t know very much about human relationships after all.

But mainly I realized…

In 2017 I felt unhappy.  Early in the year I broke down because I was so tired.  I recovered but that was the catalyst for a lot of internal change.

This year I don’t know what came over me, but it was as if I just suddenly woke up, took a look at my life and asked if this is where I want to be.

All my life, I now recognize that I drifted.  I drifted into science stream in school cos it was supposedly more prestigious.  I drifted into the advertising industry because Fat Her thought I would like it and he recommended me to my first internship.  I knew I wanted to marry Fatty eventually but I also drifted into it because he proposed at that point.  I hadn’t thought if I wanted it then.  And I drifted into having kids because it was the thing to do.

Now the critters are older – they’re both in school! – and Fatty has a new venture he’ll probably be working on for the long term, I suddenly look around and think, what about me?  I ask myself that every day and I still don’t know.

Maybe 2018 should be the year I figure that out.