2009 was the year that i thought i found myself, but had actually lost my way. i emerged from the old year startled, sleepy, confounded, and most of all, very sad. it’s a little akin to waking up and realizing you’re in a different body and a different life. i made so many decisions the 17 year old me would have been ashamed of, and worst of all, i didn’t realize these decisions were bad for me until it was too late. i trusted too many of the wrong people, then stopped trusting altogether for a while, and forgot how to numb myself to things that just weren’t worth it. i believed in the wrong side of myself, and suppressed the right side, thinking it worthless and irrelevant simply because someone told me so. i fell in love and out of love. earned some scars along the way from literal and figurative barbed wire– huge gash on leg and heart now. spent a lot time doing things i hated doing and little to no time doing the things that were good for my soul. i even spent the dawn of the new year slightly wrong.

i was trying to fill out that new year’s meme that i tend to do most years. but the strange thing was that i could remember nothing. i couldn’t — and still can’t — remember my happiest moment, or my saddest moment. i cant remember anything at all, and that’s really strange considering how 2009 was the year i’d lost myself. i think i should be able to remember it if i lost myself. but i suppose the mind works in strange ways, and now i don’t remember anything. which, i think, is a blessing. i’m lucky again.

the first weeks of the new year have been very emotionally tumultuous. lots of have things have unfortunately been affecting me in ways that they shouldn’t be. it’s the same old stuff — frustrating people politics, the looming fear of failure, the peter pan syndrome, and being gashed at by people whom i trusted with my entire heart — only in measures more than i could handle. but i suppose it takes stuff that is this overwhelming and this torrential for me to say, i’m out of here. i’m done with this. i’m done with this completely awful trade. it was the wake up call that i really needed, and i think i’m stirring from the ashes as a newer and stronger person. i’ve found these well-hidden brooks of confidence. and i’ve found …

so the new year is looking really, really good. i dont have a plan, but i like it just the way it is. i cleaned out my room and it feels so free. i bought this jar of aromatherapy oil from Sabon and got a lot of new music which i’m now shaking my shoulders to. i’m taking classes i love (okay lah there’s still some math). loving people i love. had pancakes by myself and the new yorker this morning. for the first time ever i think i’m glad i’m here. i could learn to love this school and this city. i think the hugest wedge in my 2009 was that i was so preoccupied with trying to find out what the world needs. it was a set of blinders that threw me down a direction that just wasn’t meant for me. but now i’m doing things that make me come alive. and i guess that old quote is right– the world needs people who’ve come alive.

pardon the brevity but i have some catching up to do with life. talk soon! :)