Somewhat Reflections of 2024

 2024 was finally the first year that I didn't write anything in the blog.

My 13 years streak was broken. Hahaha. But that's alright. Come to think of it, this blog almost as old as some Gen Zs I am friends with. By the time they were babies, I wrote stuff about my high school life. 

Anyway. There's no excuse for not writing, I guess. I think I found that in recent years, I don't stop or try to write anything and just entertain myself when I have free time.

...Wait.

That's not right.

So I guess I have written some things last year, just in different forms... or different purpose I guess.

But to get on with the title, here are some 2024 things I wish my future self would remember:

1) I watched concerts again

In fact, I watched 2 concerts. IU and Eric Chou, both with Terry. Both I enjoy a lot. Everyone was seated in that concert, and it was fun. Both are karaoke-fest. It was nice. 

IU concert is a cute one, because it gives me a new friend.

2) I have a new friend!

I didn't really expect it. But I made a friend, and I love her very much. She is like a little sister--which I don't think I have ever had a friend who felt like a little sister. Mostly because for the most part, I AM the little sister (lol) or like they're just my homies. Anyway. She's a really sweet young lady, who have a lot of dreams and a very warm personality. Also have a very kind heart. She would speak of her days in the most joyous ways and perceive things in a positive manner. Every time I imagine her voice when reading her writing, I wish I could hug her.

She have a lot of hobbies and is happy to share her thoughts and days to people. We write emails--I feel like it seems like it's somewhat a thing in some of my friendships--and she would asked me so many curious things that I have taken for granted. I have forgotten how to write in the most yappiest way possible--and in 2024, that was rebirthed into a 5000 word essays I sent to her as an email reply. 

I think that's a bit funny.

3) I am now strong(er)!

In the last couple of years I try to be healthier by working out more regularly and I think 2024 on average had been a good year in that sense. Whilst the peak of my gym life is only the first couple of months, I have now the knowledge of proper work out posture, how to use different kinds of machines knowing its specific purposes, and I feel like I have less buncit stomach (somewhat). But most importantly, I am stronger! I have less physical pain (i.e on my hand, my arms, my back) and I am usually already asleep by 12 (can be better, but good enough!). I tried better lifestyle but none of them stick yet so we'll see but I like the progress last year, it's apparent that my body is already better at doing physical activity. I think it's cool.

4) I still don't have horse

And that's ok! I spent time with horse the first time almost 10 years ago (2015) and at that moment, I thought something along the lines of "In ten years time, I want to have horses". I misremember and I thought that was 2014--so actually, my 10 years is this year. But I think it's ok if I don't get to have horses yet. I wish there's a place for them in my future, but I am happy enough that I got chances to be close to them, even in isolated and limited amount of time. Let's see what the future holds for me and this dream of mine :D

5) I get myself some insurances!

This is not only a 2024 thing, is also on 2025. So other than life insurance I also have funeral insurance now! I am ready more than ever to die and be at peace my loved ones should not need to worry about at least material and the troublesome aspect of my death. They can mourn without being too busy! I am happy with this prospect!!

6) I am employed and I am married and I am happy!

Last year was the first year of my employment I am grateful for it :D It was also the second year of my marriage and it was better than how my first year went! Overall, life has treated me kindly, and I am blessed with companionship, love and work that does not make me want to die all the time. 

7) I had my first major operation ever and it went well!

I had some cysts removed and I am glad it's quick and covered by insurance! I am blessed with so many things that's visible and invisible, it's impossible to list down everything.  

8) I didn't finished as much games this year, but I have more love to share

I get into lolesports and instead of spending my nights finishing games I find fun I just watch people play games! And I enjoy it very much!! I come to love and admire people in the scene and I want to support them with my money (and I somewhat am). I am happy that I come to love something a lot again. I wish there's a more productive hobby for me but I also think it's already so amazing that I can find a new found happiness from seeing someone succeed or being really good at what they do. Isn't that so cool? 

Maybe that's all so far. I think... if I could let myself stay a bit longer to think and write, I can say a lot more. But right now, I am in the intersection where I don't know if I should read or play games, but if I read I have so many things to read and which one to read and if I play I can play so many games and I also don't know which one to play. I will read or play something and I think I would still rather do that than write longer (for now!). So, it's not that writing does not make me happy, just that there are other things that makes me happy too! And I am not writing because I am also doing happy things, that's nice. So I will stop here. Just because, well. I will let 2024 the only year void of my writing, this year is different!

One of my bestest friend said she missed me writing. I missed it too! Like many things I do for my loved ones, I would be happy to deliver.

The first writing this year is for her. She might read or not read it, but I will write more for her (and me!). I want to continue reading and thinking and pouring it out to something that's mine again. Hehe.

Friendships are great

Friendship is really cool. I am blessed with good friends and I hope to keep them forever, though in the past year and two apparently I cannot always do that hahaha.

I have friends who have become a constant to me. They are people whom for some reason, in my life, just stays, never really going away, for the longest time. More than half of my life I spent with some of them. We don't even talk about our feelings or woes, sometimes. Sometimes, not even the people I go to when I have problems. But they're just there, you know? People whom I just know will be around if I need them to. 

Some friends I have are special. Not really because I am especially close with them or anything, but for the fact that I can go to in any point in time and I can expect them to get back to me. We don't even share news regularly or whatever. I sometimes only know what's going on with them through the updates of the social media--if any, or not at all, if they are not the type. But they're my friends. And I know I am too, for them. 

I do have some friendship lessons, though. I had came to a realization that sometimes, I am just not that much of a good friend to some people. And I think it's fair for those people to evaluate our friendship and no longer consider me a friend. I too, find that some people are not able to handle me or understood me, in ways that being myself hurts them. So not being in vicinity of them should be the most logical conclusion for me. I guess for these cases I still have a lot of things to learn, and perhaps growing to become better person is just something you need to do to be a good friend for some people you have lost. Who knows if time could heal as much as it grows you, and perhaps some things are not lost anyway? Only time will tell. In any case, the things we lost make us who we are as well, and for that, I cherished all of these encounters and hopefully they heal me more than they broke me.

But at the end of the day, friends are great. Friendships are great. The time spent with friends energize me, and I learnt so many things, feel so many things that are positive, and help me become the person that I like being. It's so cool. I hope everyone have good friends that love them and care about them, because it's amazing.

Update Until Today

Things are different than it was since I last updated my blog. To be honest, I think in the past year I didn't get that much time to just be reflective in general, just on the mode of keep going and distracting myself here and there. But here is some updates just for the record of me being alive in 2023 despite has not looking forward to long life since ever.

Anyway, I am well. I am in good health, and I am happy. Things around me are good too. My loved ones are close by and well. Working has never been my passion but I am in one where I can do it remotely forever so I am eternally grateful for it. Still prefer not having to get up in the morning and think of the work I need to do 5 days a week, but it is good. I am content.

I get my birthday blues like usual, and of course being confused is what I am--with no ambition, dreams, and having a good life already what is there to seek? The thing is that I do know I can do whatever I want to do, and there's little things that hinder me from it. But what is it that I want to do exactly, when I am happy with all that I have and that there is little out there that entices me? It's a quiet, mediocre life with the daily complicated questions of what to eat for dinner, and I think it's a good one.

I finished so many games last year, and I hope to continue to do so this year too. It's just January and I already finished 2 AAA games (well... I started P5R in December but I finished this month so it counts) and I really hope to have more and longer horse trips this year.

I learnt a lot too this past year. Some about myself that I never knew, and I am proud that I went pass the difficult and uncomfortable phase. There's always discomfort in figuring things out, and anxiety in uncertainty, but I have grown to learn to be more and more patient about it, more conscious about my effort and my laziness, more grateful for the support I get from around me.

I hope to always be close and closer to what makes me happiest, and I am glad to know that I do, always.

I am not a saint and I also get upset sometimes

My sincerity only extended from the fact that it has always been about myself. In my head, even the things I do for other people, it was an extension of what I feel and what I value. At the end of the day, I would see things that I did in the past, and how could I regret them?

They're all things that I do for myself. Sometimes I got a lot of help, and sometimes it's nice to have some people to cheer you on.

But I am stubborn and uncaring, and it feels so natural for me to think that way, that people don't owe me and I don't owe anyone, because I thought 'why would you do something that isn't for you?'

-

Sometimes I will get hurt in the heart, and I imagine it like a bruise or a scratch. Not an open wound, or anything that bleeds, but just a minor thing. It stings a bit the time you got it, but then it will pass. It will probably hurt for a few days or so, and it will be a bit raw when you touch them directly, but perhaps you wouldn't think too much of it. 

Sometimes I can see that I was hurt, and I don't even remember when or how I got them--but I wouldn't care much, because it will heal, and it usually heals fast.

I get bruised in the heart so easily lately. 

Does not seem like a good thing at first, but I wonder if I have always been easily bruised, I just never noticed because I don't care enough.

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There are days when being normal is very trying. I don't think people around me really comprehend how much I suck up to be normal. I mean, they don't need to. But I tried really hard, at being normal thing. Whatever that means.

And it sometimes it crushed me a bit... or a lot, when I get told that I didn't pull it off as well as I thought I was.

Sometimes I want to tell them I don't even wanna (be normal). Sometimes I want to tell them I am really not (normal). Sometimes I want to tell them that this is already as normal as I can get and please just accept it.

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When I speak I tone down so many things, I feel. I am actually awkward, and I practice so I get to talk in more eloquent manner. For difficult subjects, I will rehearse it in my head, or to the darkness of my room, or write it down, hoping that when I talk it would at least has a good resemblance of what I have poured out then and there.

It usually didn't. But it still work out in the end, so I'll take that.

Sometimes.

Sometimes the subject will never come up, and I will never bring it up.

I will forget it.

And in retrospect, I feel like maybe, those are perhaps things I never need people to know anyway, and that it's enough for me to have an imagined scenario in my head, where I get to say things I want to say, even when I will never get an answer to it.

-

I am patient enough.

I am very indulgent so for some things that is hard for me, I will probably take forever. But I hardly ever rush myself for those kind of things. I can wait.

I am proud of it, you know? Patience is a good virtue. I apparently have more for myself than I have for many other things in general.

It's just I think that people will not have enough for me, and I wonder if I would care.

-

Sometimes I get a mood like this, where I talk about things that mostly upsetting, when I am not upset at the time.

I process awful feelings in a way slower rate than I am with better ones (and the better ones are pretty slow already).

It's a double-edged sword, I guess.

Because perhaps I don't feel truly miserable when it happens, because I have little clue of what's going on. And yet I don't feel truly miserable now that I see it in retrospect, because even though I understand more it's a feeling that no longer around.

I will get better in due time.

The New Year

Last year had been a lot of things and I hope this year would be kinder to me. 

I am happy. For some reason, I feel like whatever it was that I have had accepted cognitively, had just registered in my heart. In other words, I think I finally succeeded in accepting them emotionally as I was cognitively. I am happy to know this development as well, because it seems that I didn't really wait or notice if things I "take" as truth in my head is processed properly for me in the heart.

Among other things, this includes the idea that I am unashamedly selfish and that I am not bothered with the idea of not knowing. I thought these are just facts about me that I have known and embrace all this time, but growing up apparently also meant that the extent of my selfishness and my ignorance are challenged, and at this point I come again to a point that I feel is a new equilibrium. It's nice!

Every time I remember that I am my favorite person, it made a lot of sense why I'm so easy on myself. Maybe my growth stunted in certain way because of it but it's the price I pay for this much convenience and peace, that feels like an alright bargain.

When I was in Salatiga I was really happy. Last week there was a time I thought "I want to be happy again,"

Am I not? I think about it, and it seems wrong to attach so much happiness to a place and a memory. There were so many things that made me happy at the time, but ultimately, it was that I perceive them as a source of joy that it felt like a dream.

For me, a lot of things are a "I'm glad it happened". Some things I want to stay forever in my life--a constant, a routine, a bond--but that I got the opportunity to taste and experience the joy that it have given me, I am happy already. 

I want to continue to be happy and free, at some point I forgot that I could wait for my death enjoying life for the sake of it.

A bit of a note, it feels like I have been experiencing time or days in a very... conscious manner. I feel it passes. It makes days and weeks and months feels a bit like forever all the time, always feels like I experience a lot of things. Not sure if it's a good thing or not, but it's nothing horrible I guess. Don't know if it'll last.

Happy new year!