Category: LFL’s Anniversary Blogging Celebration!

Dear, guys – welcome back to Letters From Liz!

So, here’s a funny story.

When I was younger, and not that much younger but seriously YOUNGER, ya girl had plans. You see, I was 22-years-old, in 2016, living the best life I could possibly live, making plans for my future like some big, ambitious hot-shot. I was wrapping up college, I was going to grad school right after, I was in a serious relationship, and I was trying to think where I wanted to be by the time I turned 26.

I told myself the following:

• First and foremost, I expected to have a working career, even though I never had a job in my life at the time. I thought by the time I turned 24 and graduated with a master’s degree, employers were going to crawl to me and beg me to work for them, and just instantly get a career that I loved. At the time, I wanted to do screenwriting, which I planned that with film school hopefully in the works, I’d be making films and all that jazz. Yep, living the dream.
• I also wanted to get engaged by the time I was 26. In my mind, 26 seemed like the right age to make such a major decision like that, that I was so ready to settle down and marry the man of my dreams; which I guessed could’ve happened because the relationship was a serious one, but still – I thought I would’ve been engaged by then. If I got engaged before that, like from 23 to 25, then I wanted to be married by the time I was 26. In this relationship, I was in that mindset that I was ready to settle down with the man I was with, so I just thought that 26 was a good age to do so.
• When I was so in love with that relationship, I had thoughts about even having children by the time I was 26. I didn’t want kids at first but discussing things like that with my former partner, it was something that I wouldn’t mind happening with that man. I was crazy in love, indeed. Again, it was in reference to my mother and how life was planned out for her; she had my sister when she was 25, and to my 22-year-old mind, I thought that was mature and an adult-like age to do things like that.
• I also thought I’d be out of my mother’s place, possibly living with my then-partner or with a roommate or something. Then again, I thought that I was capable of moving out when I was 18, but man was I fooled! At 22, I just thought that 26 was still “too old” to be living in the same roof as my family, whether or not the rent was (and still is) stupid high.

Being at 25, I realize how ridiculous and high these expectations were for me. Of course, always aim high, but at 22, I didn’t realize just how much more growing up I needed to do. Of course, at 22 I didn’t know where exactly I’d be when I celebrate my 26th birthday, but it’s nowhere even close to where I thought it was going to be. At 25, I’m single, I don’t have anyone sliding in the DMs nor do I want anyone doing so, I know I don’t want to have kids and accepted that, and marriage is something I don’t see myself being in even in the next 4 years of my twenties. At 25, I learned a lot about life since I made those plans. Also, life just happens, and sometimes the things you work for just don’t happen for you and instead bring you other opportunities to discover things that feel more like you. Although I didn’t go to film school, I found my passions in writing flourish through rhetoric and writing composition, which lead me to the place and path I’m on now! Although I didn’t get engaged, married, or had a kid (THANK GOD), I found out that some of the things that I thought I wanted were not things I wanted for me as a person, but for me as a person who was in a relationship. And lastly, although I don’t live in my own place, I still have money to do the things I want to do like travel and explore the world; just living my damn 20’s!

So, this is how I’m truly entering my 26th year:

• I work at my old college’s bookstore and I love it. I get to help college students get their textbooks as smooth and efficient as possible, which is just the start of my mission towards my career. I plan to stay in academia, maybe teach one day, but I truly become an academic advisor! Although I don’t have the experience to do so (yet), just working at a college is a good start. I also really like my job.
• I’m not in a relationship anymore, which means all the relationship things I planned didn’t happen, and I’m perfectly fine by that. People just outgrow each other, and sometimes things just don’t work out. Since being out of the relationship, I’ve had the time to focus my energy on myself, which gives me a better understanding of who I am, what I want, and where I’d like to be. As of right now, I don’t want to enter a new relationship; I just want to get to know myself, travel, live my life, and challenge myself to new and better things in life.
• I live at home because the rent is expensive and I’m just starting my life. I just started to make my own money, and I still have so many things to do because I get a place and have to spend my money on bills and such. I’m not ready for all of that, and that’s fine! Living in NYC is hard on your own, and I know I’m just not ready to try to be a complete adult and live on my own. The time will come, but it ain’t coming anytime soon.
• I’m planning to go on my first airborne trip! This would be my first time ever on an airplane, and it would be to Florida to see Tori, one of my closest friends in my life. She moved to Florida last summer, and I’ve told myself that when she settles into a place with her fiancee and her dog, Sasha, I was going to visit her. We’re hoping for a March trip, so hopefully, the blog will be getting a travel diary within a couple of months!

There’s still so much life I feel like I need to live before I do any of those “plans” I had planned for myself. I’m not sad, nor upset that my life didn’t go as planned, it happens and everything happens for a reason. So here I am, 25 and 2 days away from 26, living my life the way it was planned out for me, by me, as I got older.

At least 22 was optimistic… too optimistic.

Dear, guys – welcome back to Letters From Liz!

I hope everyone enjoyed the first few days of the new year, and I hope the first weekend of 2020 is a happy, positive, and adventurous one for you.

Now, let’s get straight to the point: I don’t believe in New Year’s Resolutions.

Again, I’m not trying to be all pessimistic here, but resolutions for me just never worked out; it was either I aimed too high or gave up on them once the feeling of a “new year” vanished. I try to keep my goals for the new year as simple as possible: just hope that the new year brings happiness and peace and blah-blah-blah…

Whatever.

Although I don’t really like making resolutions, I feel the need to make a huge change in my life for the new decade. You see, although I am quite happy and living my life the way I’d like to, I feel like I’m still holding onto things that I should’ve let go. In other words, I still carry around grudges and resentment that I should’ve resolved years ago. Maybe I wasn’t ready to, maybe I’ll never be ready to fully come out and let things go like they never happened, but I’m tired of carrying them around like unwanted baggage.

I want to leave my past in the past and my last decade in the last decade.

I want to leave the hurt, little teenage girl in the past because that isn’t who I am at almost 26. I want to leave the envy and jealousy, the pain, the insecurities, and the hatred I felt in the last decade towards people who wronged me and scarred me. I want to leave those doubts, those negative thoughts, those memories behind because I’m just tired of carrying it. Of course, some of my life I will never be able to fully let go; it’s why it’s called trauma and some of it will just be too heavy and traumatic for me to let it be, but for the most part, I’m tired of allowing it to define me, I’m tired of having to relive some of it within new scenarios in my life that may feel familiar to it, and I’m tired of it allowing me to be bitter and unwilling to forgive.

My resolution for this year, and for all years to come, is to forgive myself, the people, the events, and the circumstances that the last decade as put me through. I want to be able to one day write a message to old friends of mine and simply say “I’m sorry for leaving you unannounced, I was young, selfish, and too cowardly to handle things like an adult. I hope you’re living a great life”. I want to be able to hear the person’s name that influenced my toxic and suicidal behavior back in high-school without having flashbacks of that time, and simply say “I forgive you, I hope your life is going well.” I want to be able to see my ex every now and then, whether that be through pictures or videos or mutual friend interaction online and not think about all the wrong that happened, but say “I forgive you, I’m sorry for my part of it all, and I hope you are living out your dreams.” I want to take my 18-year-old self, forgive her for her mistakes and flaws, and just let her the fuck go. 

I want a new, clean slate. I want my baggage to be empty because I emptied it myself and threw it out, not because I just threw everything back in the closet to disguise it. I truly want to forgive everything that has happened in my life; the people who hurt me, the people I hurt, the events that took place, the mistakes that I made. I want to genuinely forgive it all. 

Of course, this is going to take more than a couple of blog posts, therapy sessions, and changes to finally be okay with everything and everyone. It’s going to take an immense amount of time to unlearn old habits and defensive mechanisms and truly see things through another perspective. I just don’t want to feel resentment anymore. 

I just want to live my life in peace, knowing that the things that haunt me don’t have the power to do so anymore.

And that’s what I hope this year teaches me: to finally forgive,

Dear, guys – welcome back to Letters From Liz!

So, it’s really crazy to believe that we are now at the start of a new decade! In the spirit of a new year beginning, I like to reflect on where I was 10 years ago; we spoke about where I was in 2009 last year! So to start off this new year (and decade), let’s talk about where I was at the start of the last decade, 2010!

• In 2010, I was turning 16. I didn’t have a sweet 16 though, but for my 16th birthday, my family agreed to the idea of me getting a nose piercing, so I did! I still have the same nose piercing 10 years later despite me getting other ones and then taking them out because I was tired of them. After that, we went shopping. The Friday before my birthday, the boy I had a really huge crush got me a cute birthday card, which even though it has been 10 years and things changed, I keep it for sentimental reasons. It was a good birthday.
• I was a sophomore in high school, aka the best year of my high-school career. I had a really good group of friends, I was performing every other weekend with the choir I was a part of, and I was truly learning about life and what it was like to be a somewhat of a normal teenager. During that season of performing, we performed at a competition called NYSSMA, and after performing some of the hardest and highest levels of pieces, we not only got gold, but we got gold with distinction! Our whole choir traveled on the B44 bus from Marine Park and celebrated the whole way. It was truly iconic.
• I was a bit rebellious when I was 16. Well, more like a lot of rebellious. You see, I spent a lot of my time with this boy that I really liked. He became my best friend and the one I’d talk to day and night, and because we were both rebellious teenagers, we both did some rebellious things. After being an innocent prude for most of my life, I was now doing things that contradict the things I felt so strongly about. I had lost my virginity when I was 16, and when I told my friends at the time about it, they were livid. It was definitely a difficult time trying to grow up but still be friends with the people that saw me one way, y’ know? Nevertheless, 2010 was a rebellious year for me.
• I went to the first and last school party of my high-school career because, again, I wanted to hang out with the boy I was really into. The scene was definitely not mine, and guys wanted to “dance” (dance as in dub) with me and I really wasn’t feeling it. It was a fun party nevertheless, but I don’t think I’ll ever get the mental image of girls literally riding guys when Ciara’s “Ride” came on. It was truly something.
• At the end of 2010, things were definitely changing for me and I didn’t know how to express them in an efficient way. When I started my junior year and I wasn’t under the wing of my upperclassman best friend, I started to become more open and friendly to a lot of the people in my own grade. When I started to make new friends of my own, I began to like someone else that I had gotten close to, and this time it was someone of the same sex. I wasn’t gay though, nor have I ever saw another girl in a romantic type of way. I remember telling my girl best friend at the time, and because of her religion then, she pretty much told me the “resist the demon” story, which was something I didn’t believe in myself. I didn’t do anything about it because I felt that liking girls was not right for me, and I tried to end it there.
• Although I was invited to a sweet 16 of a person who did not really like me, I went to one of my friends sweet 16 and it was seriously the most fun thing I did in 2010! Although she was my age, she was a grade below me, and many of her friends were from her own grade, it did feel good to interact with other people outside my circle and get out of this shy bubble that many people saw me in.

2010 was definitely a year to put in the books because of so many things (a lot not told just because I keep them close to my heart). It was truly the year of a new chapter of my life, which left behind some of the more naive, innocent, one-sided thoughts I had in the previous decade, and it’s crazy to see that 2020 might just be another decade starter where I begin a new chapter of my life. So, although the beginning of last decade was one to remember, here’s to a new decade with new opportunities to make new memories!

Dear, guys – welcome back to Letters From Liz!

Happy New Year, Letter Readers! Here’s to the start of a new year, a new decade, new memories, and new content for the blog! I hope that this year I am able to bring you guys content that is fresh, new, inspiring, and innovative!

Although there are positives of a new year starting up, it’s not always the greatest thing for me. I’m not negative about a new year, nor am I this negative Nancy-all-bitter-and-nasty about the celebrations of a new year, it’s just that during this time of the year, I have to take extra care of my mental health.

So, here is this month’s installment of:

When I was younger, my family and I would always go out for New Year’s Eve. We always had friends and family in the area, and we always went over to celebrate the countdown of a new year with them around. It was always fun; I got to dress up in a very sparkly dress and shows, I would eat good food and snacks and dance to the music playing, and right before midnight we would all gather around a watch the ball drop. It was always a holiday I enjoyed when I was younger, but as the years passed on and I got older, New Year’s Eve became this holiday I wasn’t looking forward to.

New Year’s Eve, traditionally, is a time of celebration, going out with friends and family, drinking. I truly believe everyone gets New Year’s Day off because we all need the extra day to cure the hangovers of all the drinking that we do on NYE. While yeah, most of us are able to go out, drink, have fun, and go into the new year as smooth as possible, it’s truly one of the hardest and anxious things to go through when alcohol and drinking isn’t a positive thing in your life.

I can only imagine every person who has an alcoholic in their family or within their friend group doesn’t have the greatest relationship with alcohol, and to have a holiday that emphasizes the usage of alcohol does nothing but get me anxious, stressed, and worrisome. As I got older and became more aware of what the drinking was doing to my family on NYE, I started to resent the holiday as a whole, and I now honestly try not to even see it as a holiday, but just another day turning into yet another day.

While I embrace the new positives and start of a new year, I don’t believe in new year resolutions nor am I a fan of the constant “weight-loss deals” and commercials that spam your television or advertisements. For a person that has tried to lose weight every new year since forever, it’s just a constant reminder that I couldn’t do it myself, and it’s just a downer. I mean, I won’t put anyone else’s dream of weight-loss down, it just sucks that this “new year means you have to lose weight” concept bothers me.

Also, a couple of years ago, something happened on NYE with my family. I wasn’t at home when it happened, and I’m thankful that I wasn’t, but it doesn’t mean that it didn’t affect me the way that it did. I still think about it every year that NYE comes around, and it does put a damper on my mood every year, and even after trying to do things that could put a happier mood on the holiday, things just never really went as planned. So, for now, I try not to do anything for NYE and treat it as any other day. Sure, I am grateful to live to see another year and I get another opportunity for growth and such, celebrating it for one night just isn’t something I want to do.

Maybe in the future, I’ll see the holiday in a new light and actually enjoy it, but maybe I just need some extra mental health care whenever it comes around. I’m just lucky to see another year and just continue living, in all honesty.

So yesterday, I didn’t do much; I only got a wisdom tooth removed and now I’m just recovering from that. I wrote some blog posts for this anniversary celebration, I relaxed with my family; nothing major or special was done and I’m fine with that. As long as I’m taking care of myself on days like that, it’s a victory for me.