2016
2016 was a hot mess of a year that I spent a lot of time crying through -- I probably remember more crying than there actually was, but there was a lot of crying.
The Good
- I finished my second master's degree in classical studies, along with my MA thesis, and graduated in August. At a couple of points this year I really wasn't certain that I was going to be able to do so, especially because I ended up taking an extra semester to do so.
- I went to my first convention, which also happened to be my first Star Wars Celebration, and had an amazing time and met a lot of cool fannish people.
- I wrote a lot of fanfic -- looking back, it's easy to say that this wasn't a successful year because I didn't finish anything, but I probably wrote upwards of 200K, which is, any way you cut it, a lot of words.
- For my TA job this spring, I gave my first college lecture -- just the one, but still huge for someone who's hoping to go into academia.
- I got my third tattoo, and the first one I went to alone instead of bringing a friend for emotional support.
- I did a lot of decluttering and redecorating when I moved home, which I've been meaning to do for years, and now I feel more comfortable in my room.
- I did a full rewatch of the Star Wars prequel era, from TPM to RotS and including all the Clone Wars episodes, which I've been meaning to do for years.
- I finally figured out how to wrangle my work ethic, which I've been struggling with for a long time.
The Bad
- This was probably one of the worst years ever for me in terms of emotional and mental health. I spent a lot of time crying, like I mentioned above, and the span of July-August-September is pretty much a black pit of despair where I don't remember much except for all the crying. I started out the year by refusing to talk to my father for about four months (he made me cry on Christmas day), had a vacation that was pretty disastrous apart from SWCE itself, and moved home at the beginning of August, when I had what even at the time I could identify as what was, for me, pretty severe depression.
- In November and December a very close relationship, which had been on the rocks since May and which I should have ended in July, began to crumble, and I finally ended it in December. I spent a lot of time increasingly unhappy and feeling trapped and attacked; I started to doubt almost every aspect of my personality and the way I expressed myself both online and off. My self-confidence, self-esteem, sense of self-worth, and ability to trust my own opinion have mostly collapsed as a result.
- politics
The Neutral or Not-Bad-Bad
- I moved from a city I loved back to my hometown, which I do not love but don't actively hate. I've done the NOLA-Ellensburg move several times now, and I think this final time has really cemented my desire to live in New Orleans permanently. The next time I move back, I'm not moving away again. Unfortunately, I don't know when that will be, since I'm in the middle of graduate school applications that, if successful, will determine where I live for roughly the next seven years.
- I also moved back in with my parents, which has been at times a pretty rough adjustment, coming off living alone for two years. In an apartment, in a big city, in a fairly central part of said city, in Louisiana, as compared to home, which is in a house with a fair amount of property, outside of town, in a rural town in Washington State. It's a lot of culture shock, despite the fact that this is where I grew up.
- Some of the repercussions of the move mean that I hardly ever leave my house and I have no RL friends in the same state, and since I'm not working or going to school at the moment it's meant that I've been increasingly isolated.
Things that I am hoping for in 2017
- To put up with less bullshit in hopes of not hurting anyone. Someone is already hurt; it's me, and I'm just prolonging my pain by putting someone else's needs or desires before mine.
- To try and find more peace with myself. 2016 did a number on my ability to trust literally any of my own feelings, and I want to try and undo some of that damage.
- One of the weird things that's happened over the past year or two is that I've gotten increasingly uneasy to express an opinion online, which I think is partially due to the move away from a fannish journal culture. It's resulted in me doubting myself and my opinions and being unwilling to express them, and I would like to try and take a step away from that.
- I spent a lot of time complaining this year, to the extent that it actively started to destroy my ability to actually enjoy things. This is tied up in a lot of things, including what happened with X, but the end result is that it makes it hard for me to enjoy things and it makes me doubt myself, and I need to stop doing so much of it.
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The Good
- I finished my second master's degree in classical studies, along with my MA thesis, and graduated in August. At a couple of points this year I really wasn't certain that I was going to be able to do so, especially because I ended up taking an extra semester to do so.
- I went to my first convention, which also happened to be my first Star Wars Celebration, and had an amazing time and met a lot of cool fannish people.
- I wrote a lot of fanfic -- looking back, it's easy to say that this wasn't a successful year because I didn't finish anything, but I probably wrote upwards of 200K, which is, any way you cut it, a lot of words.
- For my TA job this spring, I gave my first college lecture -- just the one, but still huge for someone who's hoping to go into academia.
- I got my third tattoo, and the first one I went to alone instead of bringing a friend for emotional support.
- I did a lot of decluttering and redecorating when I moved home, which I've been meaning to do for years, and now I feel more comfortable in my room.
- I did a full rewatch of the Star Wars prequel era, from TPM to RotS and including all the Clone Wars episodes, which I've been meaning to do for years.
- I finally figured out how to wrangle my work ethic, which I've been struggling with for a long time.
The Bad
- This was probably one of the worst years ever for me in terms of emotional and mental health. I spent a lot of time crying, like I mentioned above, and the span of July-August-September is pretty much a black pit of despair where I don't remember much except for all the crying. I started out the year by refusing to talk to my father for about four months (he made me cry on Christmas day), had a vacation that was pretty disastrous apart from SWCE itself, and moved home at the beginning of August, when I had what even at the time I could identify as what was, for me, pretty severe depression.
- In November and December a very close relationship, which had been on the rocks since May and which I should have ended in July, began to crumble, and I finally ended it in December. I spent a lot of time increasingly unhappy and feeling trapped and attacked; I started to doubt almost every aspect of my personality and the way I expressed myself both online and off. My self-confidence, self-esteem, sense of self-worth, and ability to trust my own opinion have mostly collapsed as a result.
- politics
The Neutral or Not-Bad-Bad
- I moved from a city I loved back to my hometown, which I do not love but don't actively hate. I've done the NOLA-Ellensburg move several times now, and I think this final time has really cemented my desire to live in New Orleans permanently. The next time I move back, I'm not moving away again. Unfortunately, I don't know when that will be, since I'm in the middle of graduate school applications that, if successful, will determine where I live for roughly the next seven years.
- I also moved back in with my parents, which has been at times a pretty rough adjustment, coming off living alone for two years. In an apartment, in a big city, in a fairly central part of said city, in Louisiana, as compared to home, which is in a house with a fair amount of property, outside of town, in a rural town in Washington State. It's a lot of culture shock, despite the fact that this is where I grew up.
- Some of the repercussions of the move mean that I hardly ever leave my house and I have no RL friends in the same state, and since I'm not working or going to school at the moment it's meant that I've been increasingly isolated.
Things that I am hoping for in 2017
- To put up with less bullshit in hopes of not hurting anyone. Someone is already hurt; it's me, and I'm just prolonging my pain by putting someone else's needs or desires before mine.
- To try and find more peace with myself. 2016 did a number on my ability to trust literally any of my own feelings, and I want to try and undo some of that damage.
- One of the weird things that's happened over the past year or two is that I've gotten increasingly uneasy to express an opinion online, which I think is partially due to the move away from a fannish journal culture. It's resulted in me doubting myself and my opinions and being unwilling to express them, and I would like to try and take a step away from that.
- I spent a lot of time complaining this year, to the extent that it actively started to destroy my ability to actually enjoy things. This is tied up in a lot of things, including what happened with X, but the end result is that it makes it hard for me to enjoy things and it makes me doubt myself, and I need to stop doing so much of it.
You can also read this entry on Dreamwidth (
comments)