A year ago, I wanted to ring in my 23rd birthday by doing something fresh, new, and special to kick off the year. For once, I really didn’t want my birthday to be all about me; in the last couple of years I’ve been pretty normal and chill about my birthday approaching. But last year, I felt different. I wanted to ring in the new year and birthday doing something that I was once afraid to do because I was afraid of being judged by people. But, ya girl put on her big girl pants and took the risk to put my writing and my thoughts out on the internet for people to read.
365 days later, I do not regret that decision.
Despite 2017 being absolutely horrendous, creating TNTH was possibly one of the biggest highlights of the previous year. TNTH was created out of pure spontaneity. I wasn’t daily journaling anymore in my spare time and I had no creative outlet going for me at that time. I had just finished my first semester of grad school (which is crazy to think that I’m about to end my second one this year) and I was beginning to feel robotic and uninspired with my creative side. I created TNTH to take that step further in what I want to do in life. TNTH was merely just going to be a hobby of mine; it was something I would occasionally come back to and write whatever I wanted to write about. TNTH was originally supposed to help me get back my creative side while I was in grad school being “Liz, the grad student” while still being “Liz, the writer”. Who would’ve thought that TNTH would do that for me and so much more?
TNTH has provided me a platform to find and express myself in a world where everyone else is trying to do the same thing. TNTH has shown me the type of writing I want to do as a career. TNTH had helped me create a brand and name for myself in a community where I may just be a dot in a circle of millions, but I’m proud of what it is.
In the past year that TNTH has been around, I’ve gotten the chance to write about a variety of different things that I never would’ve thought of writing about. I created a platform where not only was I able to discuss things that matter the most to me, but I was able to discover parts of myself I wouldn’t have had discovered if I didn’t write out certain posts. Many series’ came and went throughout the year, yet two of the series I personally am thankful for having was A Voiceless Rant and Self-Appreciation Saturday. These two series taught me a lot about myself and how I want to help others discover these parts of themselves. Whether my readers are in their 20’s or 40’s, I hope to express my voice for those who may not have the privilege or platform to use their own. In the past year, I realize that was the reason why I even started writing in the first place.
So thank you all SO MUCH for the support you’ve given TNTH this past year. Thank you for clicking these posts every week to see what I have to say. I am just a 24-year-old woman in NYC trying to find herself in the gist of it all; I am merely just a dot on the mosaic painting we call life, yet TNTH supporters come back and read what I have to say. It’s crazy to even think about, so thank you.
So as I personally celebrate my 24th birthday today, we celebrate TNTH’s 1st! Thank you for following this 9-day daily blogging celebration leading up to today’s special day for TNTH. Here’s to another year of music favorites, voiceless rants, self-appreciation Saturdays, and every topic Tuesday in between!
Last year, I did something similar to this by listing 22 Things That Happened/I Learned While Being 22in a post, and hey, the time of year has come around! Today is my last 24 hours being 23 years old and for the most part, I am glad this age is coming to an end. 23 was a rough one, and you can read more on this in yesterday’s post: “23: A Self-Reflection“.
Without further ado, here’s the list of 23 things:
I have 48 hours left of being 23 years old. I swear the years go by faster as they come; I was just 21 not too long ago. Being 23 wasn’t easy on me; it has been one of the more difficult years since… like, 19. 23 was that year that I don’t mind giving up because it simply wasn’t a good one for me. Even though I say that I still appreciate seeing another year and experienced being 23, it was that year that I look back on and feel like I learned a lot about myself and about life. Prior to 23, I had this idea on the world that everything was good and no harm can come my way if I had everything under control. I was always considered naive, innocent, and sometimes even stupid for thinking that everything could be perfect. I thought I dropped that mindset when I was in my late-teens, but I feel like that’s something I was still carrying around with me years after.
23 taught me that life doesn’t wait for anyone. Life will continue to go on whether you’re upset or not, not everything in this world is what it seems, and sometimes you have to get uncomfortable to understand the reality of life.
23 was the year of self-awareness.
Prior to this year, I had a clear understanding of the positives in my personality. I knew the positive things that made me “Liz”, but I always would try to push the negatives under the rug so that I was never a “negative” thing. I always told myself that I was not my negatives, and 23 taught me that I am not only my positives either. I am a control freak. I am a perfectionist. I am a narcissist when I feel offended. I have social anxiety. I forget important things when I’m nervous. I try to hurt people when they hurt me first. I have a hard time expressing what I’m thinking or feeling because I’ll feel like a burden. I avoid confrontation like the plague. I am all of these things because I know I am not perfect, but I also know I am not fully any of these things. 23 showed me these things and taught me how to acknowledge these negative traits about myself without feeling resentment towards myself. 23 taught me that the negatives balance out the positives, and if there is a negative I necessarily don’t like, then I have the power to change it.
23 showed me how to recognize and be familiar with the things about myself that I neglected for so many years. It left me uncomfortable, depressed, and uncertain about where I was supposed to go and how to get there. 23 showed me the ugly things life can be if you’re oblivious to the negatives. 23 also showed me that the negatives in life are not meant to be fixed, but they are meant to show you that life is about balance. Even if 23 wasn’t my year of growth in the way I wanted it to be, it still showed me growth; growth that I needed to move forward.
So, before you guys read the title and say “uh, Liz, what the hell are you talking about?!”, let me explain what I mean by it. It’s not what you think it is.
So, as we officially end the first week of 2018, many of us have resolutions that we are attempting to follow and achieve. Resolutions sound optimistic and promising on New Year’s Eve, but once the new year actually rings around, we don’t have that same enthusiasm we once had in the previous year. We all feel like if we didn’t accomplish our resolutions six days into the new year, we failed. Then, we all just shrug our shoulders and say, “there’s always next year!”
The problem with resolutions is that most people make resolutions that aren’t short-term goals. We all say that we want to lose weight or we want to save up money for a vacation; things that take time and dedication to achieve. Just because we eat that one cheeseburger for dinner one night or if we spend money to buy that new iPhone, it doesn’t mean you automatically failed your resolution.
Many of us have this assumption that if we make a new year’s resolution, it will automatically apply once we hit the new year. Resolutions don’t work like that and that’s why many people tend to stop going to the gym once the first three weeks of January are over. We don’t give our resolutions enough time to actually become something. We treat resolutions like they are short-term goals when in reality, they aren’t. Resolutions can be short-term; resolutions can be as small as drinking a bottle of water every day or water the plants every morning. Those type of resolutions are usually called habits, and many of us believe even the littlest things can’t be resolutions.
Instead, we make long-term resolutions and treat them like they are short-term ones. We give up on them too easily when in reality, we aren’t taking them as seriously as they are.
I didn’t make crazy resolutions for 2018 because most of my resolutions for 2017 did not go as planned. I fell into the “make unrealistic resolutions and try to achieve them anyway” lifestyle, and most of my resolutions fell apart when something major happened in my life that year. Resolutions are made because you want to better yourself and make your year a good and productive one; they are not the problem solvers of life. Life willhappen, and it’s up to you if you allow it to defeat your mission of bettering yourself or make you even more determined to better yourself.
So, if you’ve given up already on your resolutions or if you didn’t make any because you find it hard to keep them throughout the year, start off by making your resolutions short-term. When you feel like you can keep them, then start thinking about the bigger and longer ones that teach you lessons about life or help you get through the year. Resolutions are hard work, but they aren’t impossible to keep.
My 2018 resolution is to simply be happy. Nothing more, nothing less. I know that this resolution is a long-term one, and I know not every day in 2018 is going to leave me happy at the end of the day. I am going to be sad, I am going to be nervous, I am going to be anxious, I am going to be an entire spectrum of emotions. I know that being happy is going to take a lot of personal work, and because I know these things, I know that this resolution can be kept and accomplished by the end of it.
So, let’s talk about a topic that has been pretty popular for the last couple of years: hair. If you know me or you’ve read the blog before (i.e. this Hair Color/Guide post), you would know just how much I am addicted to hair. There’s something about it that I love about it, and I am notoriously known for switching it up. I’ve had almost every hairstyle and hair color you could possibly think of. In the recent years, many other people have been gaining this obsession with hair as well, it most likely started because of Kylie Jenner and her teal ombre hair back in 2014. Since then, people are at beauty supply stores more than ever, hairdressers are now making hair tutorials on YouTube, and hair is just as important as an accessory in fashion.
I am naturally a brunette crossing the line of black hair. My hair is very dark. To even dye it a lighter brown would include in using bleach. I’ve had success and horror stories with bleach, and in recent times, they’ve all been bad due to the black hair dye build up in my hair. If you know me, you’ve might’ve heard me complain about this all of 2017.
My current hair color is back to black because I am on the journey (again) of getting it back to health after messing with it and cutting it in the majority of 2017. My current hair status? It’s growing and everything is going well, but I do get tired and impatient of waiting for it to grow to at least have my front layers touch my shoulders. It’s torture to wait. Since then, I’ve been getting more and more interested in finding alternative ways to get some length on my hair while I wait. I religiously watch Tasha Leelynon YouTube and she is currently going on a healthy hair journey as well, and she passes the time by putting human hair tape-in extensions on. While those cost about $300 to get and do, it just made me more interested in finding ways I could enjoy having the best of both worlds without actually damaging my own hair.
Recently, I went searching for a wig. Today, I received her.
Obviously, I have no idea how it’s going to look or if it’s even wearable, but it does not hurt to try. Seriously, I’ve thought about buying a wig for months, but I constantly told myself that I was going to look stupid with it and there’s always this stigma that women with artificial hair such as extensions, weaves, or wigs meant that they were ugly or fake.
Extensions seem like they’re more accepted into society because you’re just clipping (or taping) pieces of hair to your existing head of hair. Women would happily say that they have extensions in their hair, yet be too embarrassed to put a wig on their head and say the same thing. Why? Because wigs and weaves always meant to other people that you do not have hair to showcase on your own. That a woman needs to put artificial hair on because she doesn’t have natural hair, which ultimately brings her down from a 10 to a 5 if she doesn’t wear her real hair. What about those who actually wear wigs because they are chronically ill? What about those who develop diseases that result in hair loss? Women who wear wigs and artificial hair in that scenario aren’t constantly frowned upon for doing it, so why is the concept of artificial hair still associated with “being ugly” or “being fake”?
I will admit this; At first, even I was embarrassed to tell my mother and my partner know that I purchased this wig, despite knowing they were not going to judge me.
But why can’t women just wear what they want? In what harm are they bringing you that they are wearing fake hair on their heads? It’s it offending you or hurting you in any type of way? Wigs were never accepted into society until recently, and half the women who are wearing wigs on their head have an excessive amount of hair on their heads already. Wigs are more than ever in style because of celebrities choosing wigs to transform their hair without the long process of cutting and coloring it. Personally, this wig isn’t going to be on my head 24/7. This wig will be on the days that I want to have long hair. There will be days when I want to wear my short natural black hair. I sought out for a wig for that I am able to have both while my actual hair remains untouched, protected, and regains its health, and, newsflash: many women are.
We are in 2018, you guys. If you want to buy a wig just for the experience or because you are planning to rock it out in public, do not be afraid to do so. I hope to follow my own advice when it comes to wearing mine out in public myself, but hey – 2018 is the year of the fearless: so fuck what everyone else thinks.
So, it’s 2018. It’s crazy to believe that 10 years ago was 2008. 2008 was one of those years you look back on and remember your youth and the memories that are forever a part of that specific year. I thought it would be fun to reminisce about the person I was and the memories that made this year one to always remember. I wrote a #TBT post about 2008a while ago if you’d like to read a more detail description of this year. If not, here’s a summary of 2008 through my eyes.
In 2008, I was 14 years old. I vaguely remember my birthday being during the school week and I went to school with my pretty outfit I bought at Fashion Bug and I straightened my hair for the big day. I never straightened my hair in middle school so whenever I did get it straightened, it was a big deal to my friends. Another person in our class also shared the same birthday as me which never happened because I don’t really know that many people who are born in January, let alone on the same day as me. My birthday was a fun day; I got birthday wishes from all of my teachers, I got my various birthday punches (a middle school tradition), and I got mad love by my friends. I spent my after-school hours auditioning for the school play, which was an experience of its own. Eventually, I got the role of “Queen of Hearts” in the production of Alice in Wonderland.
I was really big on music at this time. I listened to such a variety of music that I look back now and remember a lot of different music from 2008. That summer, though, I started to get into the Jonas Brothers and Demi Lovato, and I was literally that girl. My friends who were still into the mainstream music actually began to judge me for my music tastes, but guess who didn’t give a fuck!
My 8th-grade class literally made my year. We were considered one of the smartest classes in the middle school yet we were one of those classes that raised hell in our classes. Something would happen every single day, whether it was rumors being spread around about our teachers hooking up, causing havoc in our math class because we never did a damn thing in Math, and even when someone stole a few things from one of my teachers one time, we all stood together like a family.
The greatest day of 2008 was opening day of my school’s production of Alice in Wonderland. For months, I spent my after-school hours rehearsing for the show, making friends along the way, and it was bittersweet to see the show come to life after months of getting it together. All my friends and family came out to support, I owned the stage whenever I was in character, and it was just one of the things I am so happy I did, even years after the fact. This production really made my passion for singing and acting a lot stronger, and I was excited to continue my studies in performing arts high school that Fall.
When the weather began to get warmer, my friends and I would always hang out on Fridays after school. We either went to the park in our area and played basketball (I would be the one watching), or we would go to the movie theater in Bay Rudge and watch something. The first ever movie hangout we all went on was to see Iron Man, and surprisingly it was amazing! It was more fun that there were, like, 15 of us in that movie theater just hanging out and having a good time. One of the best movies we all went to see in theaters was Batman: The Dark Knight. Seriously, that movie to me was put together amazingly. It was one movie that all of us wouldn’t have dared to talk through because it was so good.
In our grade, everyone knew who were the best singers in our grade. I was known to be one of the best. I participated in every talent show since the sixth grade and I was in both of the school productions while being in that school. I was even chosen to sing a duet with another one of those singers for graduation, and we sang our asses off. Because I went to a regular junior high-school that wasn’t specialized, it was a big deal to my friends when I told them I got accepted to Brooklyn High School of the Arts.
My class was chosen to be a part of this middle school Ballroom Dancing program and I was one of the people chosen to be a part of something called the Rainbow Match Competition. In each round, we were assigned a color and our hand-picked dance couples had to compete with other schools in that category. I did something similar to this in the 5th grade where we made it all the way to the semi-finals; I was assigned as the merengue couple with a boy from my class. In middle school, I was assigned to do the Tango with a boy I really didn’t like because he didn’t take me or the competition seriously. But we did what we had to do, and we ended up getting third place.
Although I was a singer, I started to take myself more seriously as a writer as well. I was even chosen to share an original poem about ballroom dancing during out school performance. Eventually, I even started to keep a journal that I eventually wanted to make an actual published book in the future. I don’t know if future me would do that now, but I wrote everything down and made sure I recorded the memories I was making in 2008. I even made a scrapbook of all the 2008 memories; I’m glad that I did. It was definitely the start of me writing down everything for the sake of sealing the memories for a lifetime.
2008 was that year I had after having a year of uncertainty and self-doubt. 2007 was a year of tears and fakeness and losing friends for stupid things and 2008 was the opposite of that. I felt more like myself in 2008 than I had prior to that year. I guess I hold 2018, ten years later, to that same expectation. I hope that 2018 is great for its own reasons, but I hope it has the same amount of happiness and positivity that 2008 had. 2008 Liz was a girl who was a force to be reckoned with; 2018 Liz is going to be the woman version of that.
Saturday morning, my family and I got our bags (and Christmas gifts) together and waited for my aunt to come pick us up. Nobody in my family that was going knows how to drive (and hopefully that changes this summer) so we usually have to get picked up by another family member in order to go to other states. I was really excited to go to Pennsylvania to see my extended family for New Years because we never rang in a new year with my mother’s side of the family. I was also very excited to get up and out of the city and enjoy a Pennsylvania winter where there’s going to be snow on the ground until possibly the middle of April. We left New York around noon and we were on the road for about 2 and a half hours. I know.
Pennsylvania Winter.
We finally got to my grandparents’ house around 2:30 in the afternoon and my god was there so much snow on the ground. It was also freezing because they do live in what is considered “the mountains” so it just felt like my breath was constantly being taken away from me. It was bad. We all ran inside, got settled in, and at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, we had dinner. I know.
Because we don’t see each other before or even on Christmas, we typically do Christmas in January to celebrate Christmas, my cousin’s birthday which is in December and my birthday which is in January. This year, we did all of that while up in PA for the weekend. We all opened our gifts around my grandparents’ little Christmas Tree. It’s funny how many of the things we all got were really warm pieces of clothing because we all expected that we could use it while we were up there; I got a heavy blanket, a heavy sweater, heavy pajamas, heavy socks, pretty much heavy everything. I also got a couple of things from Bath & Body Works, a pair of really nice jeans, and a couple of gift cards which definitely came in handy. Then my grandparents gave me my birthday gift, and it was this beautiful navy blue coat.
I’m ready for the coldest of winters!
After opening gifts, we got the table ready to have dessert, which meant it was time for birthday cake. My grandmother made an all chocolate cake with a green cream cheese frosting and sprinkles. She also made some chocolate cream pie which was crazy because my mother forgot to make one for Christmas, so I was really happy for that. All in all, it was great to spend birthdays and holidays and celebrate them all with my extended family.
Birthday Celebration.
Later in the night, we all went and watched a couple of holiday movies that my grandmother recommended us to watch. One of them was good, but it began to get extremely awkward when my teenaged cousins (both boys) began to make inappropriate jokes about one of the movies, and honestly, it killed my vibe a lot. But other than that, we spent the night hanging out, eating a lot, and catching up.
Sunday, December 31st, 2017 – New Year’s Eve
The first full day being in Pennsylvania and honestly, by the time it was over, I was completely over being up there. Don’t get me wrong, I love my family, but as I get older I began to realize just how much I can actually handle them, and a day and a half is pretty much my limit. NYE always feels like the longest day of the year because you anticipate the new year coming and all of that, but NYE in Pennsylvania was brutally slow. At the start of the day, it was fun; my sister and I took pictures out in the snow because we’re two basic NYC bitches that don’t get to see snow like this. Despite it being frozen the first 5 minutes being outside, we managed to get some pretty nice snow pictures:
Megan taking landscape pictures.Definition of a Snow Baby.“Haha, it’s cold af out here!”Beginning of the basic Instagram photo…The result of the basic Instagram photo.It says “NYE 2017” in the Snow.
After we came in and defrosted from the outside cold, we had some lunch, Megan went to take a nap and I went to color in some adult coloring books in the dining room. Because my grandparents live in the countryside, there’s no cell service and no wifi either. I mean, my grandparents are pretty old, and they don’t want to invest in getting some wifi even though everyone says they should. Because of that, it’s very easy to get bored up there. What I do to pass some time is definitely do some coloring. Coloring passes about 1 to 2 hours, and then I would probably just go and hang with my sister.
As the night came and we all went to eat dinner and dessert (it’s a ritual to do both literally one another the other together), it was time to bring out the snacks and stuff in preparation for the new year. My grandparents were too tired o stay up until midnight to ring in the new year, but my family and my aunt’s family managed to stay up until the new year came in. My aunt’s family is… unique. Needless to say that something happened, and the family was divided for most of the night; my sister and I were with my mother, and they were in the kitchen playing cards. Because of the little things that began to add up across the weekend, my family was pretty much over everything and were ready to go to sleep and head back to Brooklyn the next morning. In some context, my mother’s side of the family does not live in New York and they live comfortably. My actual family does not. We also live in a city of diversity, so we don’t have any opinions on other types of people. These people, although my family, sometimes literally get me sick because of their one-minded perfect world lives. Like, I get it, you work hard for what you have and you’re doing great at it, but not everyone is as fortunate as you and not everyone is like you. There are different types of people in the world and it just makes you look ignorant if you don’t acknowledge that it does. Because of feeling like this and many other personal things, I got a little bit upset once the new year was here. I expected the night to be more than it really was. I guess I wanted to feel like I was ringing in the new year with positivity and love, and I didn’t feel it. It was there, but then it wasn’t. I went to bed telling myself that I would’ve rather been back in NYC with my partner, ringing in the new year with him and having a fun time.
But I digress and I am still thankful that I was around family ringing in the new year.
Monday, January 1st, 2018 – The Departure
Despite going to sleep at around 1 in the morning, my family and I had to be up and ready to head back into the city by 11 in the morning. We packed up our things, ate some breakfast, and allowed everyone to do their thing before we headed out on the road. In the meantime, I spent my time waiting in my room, hanging out with my grandparents’ dog, Foxy.
Foxy!
We said our goodbyes and headed on the road back to the city. I was completely exhausted from the night before that I don’t even remember much of the ride because I fell asleep through most of it. We got back to NYC around 2:30 in the afternoon, and that was that. I did enjoy my time up in Pennsylvania. My family and usually get to go up there doing the summer once a year, so it was great to have been up there during the winter time. When I was younger, my family and I went to Pennsylvania a lot of the times, especially during the winter time for Thanksgiving. Some of my favorite Pennsylvania memories come from those times. I’ve met some family I never met before, my step-cousin, Cara, and I used to put shows together for my family to come and see, all of the kids would go upstairs and blast music in the biggest room of the house and throw dance parties. It used to be extremely fun being up there and maybe it’s because we’re all older that we don’t get to do fun things like that around the house, but other than that, I do enjoy getting away from the city once and a while to just be around quietness and peace. All in all, I enjoyed my time there. Winters in PA are cool, but they don’t compare to the Summers up there. Hopefully, there’ll be a summer edition to this diary later on this year; we’ll see!
How’s everybody doing? Everyone came into the new year feeling refreshed? If not, I hope the feeling of starting anew happens very soon for you, because everyone deserves to reset at the beginning of the year.
I wanted to begin the year with one of my favorite series on the blog:
This month’s topic of A Voiceless Rant has to be one of the most underrated and overlooked things in our lives: patience. Patience is one of those things that people easily dismiss, especially if you live in a city like NYC. Being a New Yorker puts this lack of patience in you because this is the city that never sleeps. We are constantly on the go and in order to survive somewhere like NYC, you have to be quick with everything. With that being said, we tend to always miss the small things in life. Those small things could even potentially be game changers in one’s life; who knows? But being a young adult in NYC makes us prone to always move forward to get what we want and what we need I order to survive and be successful. For many of us, slowing down isn’t an option, sometimes slowing down is something one never does in their lifetime. I, for one, am learning about the value of time, yet the importance of patience and how those two connect into a positive, healthy lifestyle. I swear I’m not going crazy.
One thing I failed to realize and do for the majority of 2017 was to let life do its thing. I constantly had to have control over many situations and if they didn’t turn out the way I had planned it, it would stress me out completely. I’ve always been the type of person that needed to have everything under my control or else I felt like I was losing control, and this past year I lost a lot of my control because I didn’t have any patience to balance myself out. I was constantly working yet I felt like I wasn’t doing enough, I was constantly trying to change my look to bring myself back to my life yet I felt like everything I was doing was simply a cover-up and fake version of myself, I constantly tried to make things better, yet I always felt I was making things worse, and in retrospect, I did make things worse. I learned that bad things don’t go away after being happy for one day. Just because my stressful Fall semester of grad school is over, doesn’t mean I’m not going to fall in the same hole I was in during my Spring semester (which I probably would). In order to see progress and change, you have to have patience.
I am patiently waiting for my hair to grow back healthy and long after messing with it for 8 months straight in 2017. I am patiently waiting for new, positive hobbies to turn into habits so that I have a more organized and constructive lifestyle. I am patiently waiting for the doctor’s appointment I’ll have next to tell my primary doctor that I would like to seek therapy to prevent myself to fall down the rabbit hole of depression I was living in for most of 2017. I am patiently waiting for good things in the future because I know I still have obstacles to face in the present. I am patiently taking things one step at a time (i.e. my social and school anxiety, my mental/physical health, etc.) so that in the long run, things like this are conquered and resolved and don’t play such a heavy and negative role in my life. This year, I am practicing patience, because I feel like it’s the thing in my life that I never allowed in it.
I advise everyone to practice it. Stop and smell the roses.
Today is the first day of the new year, which means a new start, new beginnings, and another chance to make the year absolutely yours. I am currently in Pennsylvania celebrating the new year with my family, and this is my reminder to you guys that I hope you spent New Year’s Eve with friends, family, or with people that mean most to you. Take on this new year by leaving everything behind and see this as the official first day of change.
Speaking of that, don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t use the new year as a way to make changes in your lifestyle. Your problems from 2017 don’t just disappear on January 1st. Most people are right; the issues you had the previous year don’t just go away, they carry onto the new year, but it’s up to you to resolve them to make your new year a good one if that’s your goal. Three years ago on 12/31/15, I came into the New Year determined to make 2016 a great fucking year. I was ready to be happy again. By the time 2016 was coming to an end, I looked back and saw just how amazing and happy I was in 2016. I wanted to maintain this newfound happiness in 2017, but things don’t work out the way they’re supposed to, and that’s okay.
It just makes me even more determined to make 2018 a great fucking year, and it will be because 2018 is going to be a big year for me.
For one, I’m graduating with my master’s in the Spring. Yep, your girl literally has 5 months left of grad school and I’m finished for good! It feels bittersweet that in May I’m going to be in another gown (now Masters) and doing what I did 2 years ago in 2016. Can we talk about how 2016 was two years ago? Seriously, time is fucking flying by. But yeah, I graduate in 5 months and I’m both excited and terrified for it.
Piggybacking from that, I am most likely going to get my first official job when I graduate. I had a job three years ago, but I was degreeless and it was an internship. With two degrees under my belt, I hope to get a starter job that I enjoy having. It’s just weird that I won’t be returning to school next Fall, but it feels good to finally feel like a functioning adult.
I’m turning 24 in eight days! I’m still trying to figure out what I want to do for my birthday, but I’ve come down to the point where I wanna spend it with my family and my partner. I really want to go bowling, but we’ll see…
Last but certainly not least, I plan on being happy this year. 2017 was a really rough year for me because I had to do a lot of growing up to do. I hope that this year I took everything that I learned in 2017. All I want out of 2018 is to be happy. Nothing more, nothing less.
On another note, today’s the first official day of TNTH’s Anniversary Blogging Celebration! I am going to try to daily blog for all days leading up to TNTH’s Birthday/Anniversary, January 9th! I feel like I’m going to slip up on a few days, but it’s the attempt that counts! 😀
Anyway, I hope everyone has such an amazing year not because you should, but you deserve to have one! Whether you have resolutions or not, make this year one of the best you had.
Letters From Liz. 