2014 was an amazing year for personal growth. The year before was a rough one; I was very much still dealing with lingering depression from high school, my freshman year of college wasn’t the greatest experience ever, and I was holding on to toxic friendships that were ruining the friendships that meant something real to me. Starting my sophomore year of college, I had a better head on my shoulders, and 2014 is still a year I very much look back at and hope to have another year like it.
On my 20th birthday, I spent the afternoon with my best friend, Obie. We didn’t do anything special (I mean I was only 20 at the time), but just hanging out with him was enough for me. There’s nothing more to say about that, it was just a good day that I spent with my best friend. Little did I know, that 20 was actually going to treat me really good.
20-year old Liz was a sophomore in college, going to school 5 days a week because I decided to take 5 classes that Spring semester. I was getting the last of my general education requirements done and starting my major core ones, which was exciting. I would describe my 20-year-old self as independent because I didn’t really have friends (besides Obie), but I also didn’t mind being alone. I always call 2014 as the year that I found myself because most of my days were spent by myself either focusing on my craft or doing things that I liked to do.
Also, I decided that in 2014, I was going to let my hair grow out and healthy again. A year prior, I had to get a really short haircut because my hair was extremely damaged from being blonde back in 2012, so once I started to grow out my hair, I told myself that I was going to treat it right and let it grow. For the entire year, my hair actually got really long, and I was so proud for not touching it and letting it just grow. As you may have read in my all about my hair post, I like to change my hair up every time I get bored with it, and even recently I cut my hair because I was so tired of the medium-length that felt like it was taking forever to actually grow longer. I don’t know how I did it, but I’m taking notes from my 2014 self to achieve the long hair growth thing again.
In 2014, I began to gain a heavy interest in crime dramas and shows. As I look back, I think I watched the most TV during this time because I was so fascinated by the behind-the-scene stories and writers who were writing these episodes and this was when my dream of being a screenwriter was a priority of mine. I started watching The Killing one night with my mother after she told me to stay and watch it with her, and ironically enough, it caught my attention fast. Once the third season ended in late 2013, AMC decided to cancel it and everyone in the fandom went crazy. Because of high-demand and trending hashtags on Twitter, Netflix announced that they will be making a fourth and final season of the show, and honestly – the majority of my 2014 was me waiting for this last season to start streaming on Netflix. My life revolved around the setting of Seattle with Detective Holder & Detective Linden. They were my OTP, I shipped Holden, I read fan-fiction of it (and wrote one too), and it’s all I thought about. During the wait, though, I watched other crime dramas like The Following, True Detective, and even Criminal Minds. (Funny story, I watched all 9 seasons of Criminal Minds every Friday for three hours during my break at the library for the entire Fall 2014 semester.)
Oh, I also got a tattoo in 2014 – but that’s for a future post all on it’s own.
In the duration of my junior year of college, I was a big cinema geek. I hung out with mostly all the cinema majors, and I was writing scripts for my introductory screenwriting class. To this day, it has been one of the best classes I ever took in college. Professor Couchman inspired me even more to write scripts, and his class made me make the decision to apply for film school for screenwriting. For my first project, I wrote a film entitled “Chandelier”, inspired my Sia’s song of the same name that came out in the Spring of 2014. It was a story about a girl named Grace who reconnects with her estranged mother through dance. To this day, it’s one of the best pieces I’ve written for any class.
Although I began to learn who I really was, the end of 2014 was the beginning of a downward spiral that continued in 2015. That’s a post for another day. In November, my grandmother from my father’s side passed away, and the whole family dynamic was damaged along with it. Long story short, if I was able to delete the last two months of 2014 for good, then I’d say 2014 was one of the best years I’ve had.
I always find myself thinking back to 2014 because it was definitely an unexpected year. I came from a depressing 2013, and all of a sudden I was able to turn my life around in 2014. I think back to this year because since then, there hasn’t been a year like it (although 2017 is beginning to feel like it). 2014 I had this zen in me. This inner peace within myself that I hadn’t felt in years. Although I know I have to grow up and deal with life in ways that I didn’t have to deal with it before, I’m just glad that in the midst of it all, 2014 taught me who I really was: this peaceful, chill, and positive person who wants to make those around them happy. To this day, I live by this mantra that no matter how messy my life may be, I will always try to make those around me smile and feel happy because not only does it help them be positive, but it makes me feel better that I can do that.
2014 also taught me how to be good to myself by protecting my weaknesses from the people who were only around to watch you self-destruct. Those people got cut from my life in every way possible, and I believe that’s why the people who are around me are a bunch that I legit can call life-long friends, you know the ones you actually invite to your wedding or make them into bridesmaids and not just “we once knew each other”.
Anyway, sometimes you just have to let life happen to see where it takes you, and if you’re headed in the wrong direction, make a new path around it.
-Liz (:
Letters From Liz. 