Hello 2021
Wednesday - 02.17.21 - 11:22PM
The new year starts off with our family meeting up over a video call, with Othniel and Luz in Montreal, and Orpah and John in a different household. We’d been watching New York’s new year’s celebrations on TV while waiting for the countdown and I remember thinking that the festivities were obviously a bit sadder than usual, though they made a valiant effort to keep the spirits high.
January starts off rocky with an attempted insurrection in the United States and somehow it seems like 2020’s troubles are set on spilling over into 2021. There goes our hope that the beginning of a new year might be our gateway to a fresh and better start instead of just being an arbitrary marker in our concept of passing time.
Still, I maintain a steady optimism and hope that maybe these are just growing pains – a necessary evil to shed skin and move on.
I turn 28 on January 7th and remember that I’ve told so many of my friends that I believe 28 will be a good year for me, and I still believe it. I feel like if anything, I will commit to doing something with this year just because I’ve talked it up so much.
Besides that, I genuinely feel like this will be the year I pull focus and really pour my energy into doing the things I love in a serious, more dedicated way. I hope I start to refine the vision I have for myself, start taking practical steps to get to where I want to be – start understanding where that is at all.
I’m glad that my birthday is so close to the new year – it’s like having a double new beginning to double the surge of motivation that new beginnings bring. I hope I can stretch this motivation out for as long as possible, and when it’s all gone, I hope I have the dedication and discipline to keep going anyway.
Later in January, I make a website to showcase my writing, and I am proud of myself. It’s a small but tangible thing and it makes me feel like maybe I’m not just someone who writes; maybe I can actually be a writer.
I make a goal to write at least one new short story every week, and so far, I’m accomplishing that goal, though admittedly it’s only been a couple of weeks. Already though, I feel like I’m learning.
People seem to enjoy my stories, which is nice, and it makes me wonder what my writing will be like once I have more practice and more stories under my belt. I get genuinely excited when I think about it, and I realize that even if I don’t find conventional success with this, I’ll be just fine with the inevitable and guaranteed sense of growth.
At work, my team is exceeding all expectations and performing in impressive ways. I’m starting to find it a bit difficult to juggle my professional and personal ambitions, but if anyone can do it, I can.
I’ll do my job when I’m supposed to do my job, and focus on my writing and other things on evenings and weekends. I want to wake up earlier so I can have mornings too, but I’m so bad at waking up and not falling into the trap of repeatedly hitting the snooze button.
Every week I tell myself I’ll have more discipline and every week I fail, but I’m not counting out changing just yet.
My mom gives me a Keurig machine and the TV that Omri used to have in Montreal and my quality of life noticeably increases. I spend more time in the living room, which is nice. After work, I eat dinner while watching episodes of Riverdale – even though it’s gotten so ridiculous – and now I’m all caught up.
Sometimes I make decaf coffee and sit at my kitchen table and write. I like the quiet of these evenings. Sometimes I even think I’ll miss them when things go back to normal and I inevitably start spending more of my free time outside of my apartment, hanging out with my friends.
I hope this year will be good to me. I hope it unfolds in kind and unexpected ways. For some reason, I have a good feeling about it, and I hope that by December, I’ll be able to look back and see that I was right.
