behold, the you of today
27th of January.
1/27.
It means something now. Last year, it was the first day of my unemployment after quitting a job that I loved (despite all my complaints about it) and leaving a team that I was more than fond of and really nurtured and cared for. It also happened to be the day when Arashi announced their plans to go on a hiatus, a decision that took me months to process and accept. Somehow it felt like my own mortality eating at my heels-a feeling, I'm sure, that only Arashi fans will understand in its entirety. Their hiatus announcement had the instantaneous effect of making us all wonder where all the years went, and how a presence that's seemingly so stable and omnipresent in our lives can disappear just like that, like a scaffolding crumbling right under our feet.
When you grow up loving someone or something who has also been growing up and older alongside you, the deadline to their existence as you know and treasure it also marks the unforgiving creep of age and time on your end. That's a long sentence for a tiny sliver of truth. Nostalgia is a potent side effect, but it's not just limited to that. There's also the inescapability of the tides changing, of chapters predictably but hurtfully closing.
So yes, me quitting my job and Arashi's hiatus announcement was a whole tail-end January pas de deux coalescing into an outsized amount existential worry.
Anyway, 2019 was really a "fuck everything and just go" kind of year. I mean, I quit my job with no plans. It was one of those decisions that I knew I just had to make, because if I stayed any longer, it would only have been because of comfort and complacency, two things I cannot accept as reasons in this season of my life. But it still stands that I feel like I only inched forward, in terms of personal progress. Maybe it's egotistical to have expected a whole evolutionary leap from myself in just a year, but with the way I upended my life, I felt like things should have changed more drastically. Again, I know it's all on me. I need to be kinder in my confusion, yes. I need to give myself credit for still trying out the opportunities that come my way, no matter how glacial the pace forward is.
I just want to give myself an even wider berth this 2020, but also apply just the right pressure. I don't have to evolve like a fucking Pokemon but I still need to constantly ask myself questions, to probe where it's distinctly uncomfortable, to reassure myself whenever I feel like it's a pointless exercise. And also, I need 2020 to be
A year of learning how to focus.
A year of tapping into deeper beauty, of articulating the locus of near perfect moments.
A year of mending all the tiny threads that have come undone, mentally speaking.
A year of just living on, just like all the other years, but hopefully with more awareness.
Nina, you're not fucking up. You're just a WIP. Please remember that.
1/27.
It means something now. Last year, it was the first day of my unemployment after quitting a job that I loved (despite all my complaints about it) and leaving a team that I was more than fond of and really nurtured and cared for. It also happened to be the day when Arashi announced their plans to go on a hiatus, a decision that took me months to process and accept. Somehow it felt like my own mortality eating at my heels-a feeling, I'm sure, that only Arashi fans will understand in its entirety. Their hiatus announcement had the instantaneous effect of making us all wonder where all the years went, and how a presence that's seemingly so stable and omnipresent in our lives can disappear just like that, like a scaffolding crumbling right under our feet.
When you grow up loving someone or something who has also been growing up and older alongside you, the deadline to their existence as you know and treasure it also marks the unforgiving creep of age and time on your end. That's a long sentence for a tiny sliver of truth. Nostalgia is a potent side effect, but it's not just limited to that. There's also the inescapability of the tides changing, of chapters predictably but hurtfully closing.
So yes, me quitting my job and Arashi's hiatus announcement was a whole tail-end January pas de deux coalescing into an outsized amount existential worry.
Anyway, 2019 was really a "fuck everything and just go" kind of year. I mean, I quit my job with no plans. It was one of those decisions that I knew I just had to make, because if I stayed any longer, it would only have been because of comfort and complacency, two things I cannot accept as reasons in this season of my life. But it still stands that I feel like I only inched forward, in terms of personal progress. Maybe it's egotistical to have expected a whole evolutionary leap from myself in just a year, but with the way I upended my life, I felt like things should have changed more drastically. Again, I know it's all on me. I need to be kinder in my confusion, yes. I need to give myself credit for still trying out the opportunities that come my way, no matter how glacial the pace forward is.
I just want to give myself an even wider berth this 2020, but also apply just the right pressure. I don't have to evolve like a fucking Pokemon but I still need to constantly ask myself questions, to probe where it's distinctly uncomfortable, to reassure myself whenever I feel like it's a pointless exercise. And also, I need 2020 to be
A year of learning how to focus.
A year of tapping into deeper beauty, of articulating the locus of near perfect moments.
A year of mending all the tiny threads that have come undone, mentally speaking.
A year of just living on, just like all the other years, but hopefully with more awareness.
Nina, you're not fucking up. You're just a WIP. Please remember that.