2023 WRAPPED

A couple of days ago I realised that I had not written my end of year post as I usually do. I was standing in a queue waiting for the hot chocolate I had ordered.

While waiting for my hot chocolate I thought of how we are approaching the end of the year, how we are (most of us) wrapping things up and decluttering and reorganising. Some planning and scheming, creating goals and quitting habits. While others refuse to be a part of all the worldly planning, organising and foreseeing. Either way, we are whether we want to or not, forced to look back at the year that was and think about what it had been and pay our once in a while last respects to some of the highs and the lows of the year.

For me this year has been quite personal and I am so grateful for that. If you've read my last year's end of year blog, you will understand how scared I was of the year 2023. I was so scared that I had no plans, no schemes, no vision almost... just scared and waiting for it to unfold and surprise me. I was too scared to imagine anything, too scared to imagine what kind of a year I wanted and that is crazy to me now to think that I had blocked myself that way.

This year that I was so afraid of, took me by surprise and took me to new heights on a personal level. This year that I was scared shitless of allowed me to experience so much, first through the fear and then through struggles then laughter, then music, and then love.

And once again as if the previous year had not shown us enough, we were to be surprised all over again. I cannot imagine the number of times people must have spoken about how worse the world has become, how things have changed so much and for the religious folks, the signs that the world is indeed coming to an end. All the signs are there, the natural distasters, the diseases, the war and every other evil you can possibly think of.

It is exhausting, trying to address everything that happened throughout the year all at once. That is why I am taking a different approach this year, there has been so much pain in the world. So much disaster that I can't even bring myself to think about it at all. There have been so many lives lost, so many lives changed and sadly, the end is nowhere in sight.

My heart bleeds for the children, in all areas of the world who will probably never experience a 'normal childhood'. Those who will for the longest days of their lives, keep hearing gunshots or feel pain in their body because of the type of work they'd had to do. My heart truly bleeds for this world, for so much pain and suffering that I feel empty and helpless. I hope that it all goes away, I truly do. The children losing their lives and their childhood because of child labour in Congo, those fleeing from their homes in Sudan, Ethiopia, Haiti, Ukraine and the list goes on.

This year like the last couple of years I've experienced that if you let yourself drown in all the atrocities of the world, you are doing more harm than any good. Because what if you were the last hope? What if you were the last one to share a smile? To make someone laugh? To remind people that there is still some good in the world, and we allow ourselves to be engulfed by only the negativity. Maybe those are one of the reasons I tried to make the most of my days and tried to focus on my everyday, the now in the hope of living for those who weren't lucky enough to see the next sunrise.

That is once again, the reason this year has been so personal and all about getting to know myself. A year where I tried to create a safe space for myself in the world so that I can stop looking for that safe place elsewhere. This year has been about revisiting past trauma and I'm barely getting started on how to process that. It's been about learning to understand why I react the way I do, and why I don't.

I experienced living alone for the first time in my life after moving out from a friend's moms place (where I was living rent-free). It was the most freeing and at the same time, terrifying feeling in the world. Keeping track of how much food Ihave, what I will have for dinner next and paying rent on time. I forgot to pay rent the first month (paid a week later), and my landlord joked about how he knew I was just getting used to it. I haven't forgottten since, it's been a part of my life now.

Then there was school of course, it is a strange feeling attending lectures with a strong fear in your mind. It gets you nowhere and leaves you even more scared. And confused. But still, I managed to procrastinate so much that I started studying two weeks before the exams right before the summer. It went well in all four modules this time, it could have definitely been better. But I was happy. Somehow throught the fear I had made it and that was all I needed to have a great summer.

Right before the summer I applied for another job and got the job after a short interview a couple of weeks before the summer break. It was two completely different jobs and they balanced each other out. At night I was serving spareribs and checking if guests had enough BBQ sauce and fries. During the day I was sitting in an office or out by the beach in another town cleaning the beach.

Like I mentioned earlier, this was a year of firsts and finding out what things I really love to do. Climbing was one of them. Outdoor climbing was definitely one of the highlights for this year, I'm almost embarassed at how much I've talked about it and shown pictures of it. I'd always wanted to do things like this, unleash the adventurer in me, and this year definitely allowed me to do so.

In that light, I attended festivals for the first time in my life and it was something I definitely would love to do again. I was going to blog about it, it never made it out of my drafts. Riddu Riđđu is an indigenous people's annual festival arranged by the coastal Sami people of Norway. The Sami like many other indigenous groups had been marginalised and stripped of their identity but stand now tall and embrace their language and culture.

Other groups I learned more about were the Lakota people from the plains of Oklahoma. There was something so sad about this shared history and yet heartwarming, that we could come together and celebrate how we never stopped fighting back, and still do fight back. It was a privilege to be there, to be a part of the uncomfortable but necessary conversations around colonialism/discrimination, listen to traditional music and most of all, the wonderful people I got to know.

The second festival was themed beer, rock music and seafood and it was exactly what it said it was. I had never seen so much beer in one place before, and all kinds of food made from fish. It was fish cakes, fish burgers, fish snacks and whatever else you can think of that can be made from fish.

I managed to convince a friend to try snowboarding which was a dream come true and we did. The couple of times I've tried snowboarding didn't go well. but I'm once again ready to learn and fall this season. The plan was to start try some skating during the summer as well, but it was scary. We try again this summer.

I think 2023 was a wonderful year, a year of even more friendships and self-growth. A year I found my tribe, my people and slowly started to embrace myself as a person. I cried enough, I laughed enough and I learned to nurture friendships. All I can do is smile at how happy I am.

I learned a thing or two about adulting, like remembering to buy toilet paper just as its about to run out and dishwashing liquid while I still have some left. I've tried budgetting too, and that's worked only about once or twice.

The reason this wrapped came so late and probably feels half done is because I have been struggling to get myself to write, to read or to do anything else. Even with the new year, new you spirit still in the air, I've just not had enough motivation to write and look back at the year that was.

The last quarter of the year was a dread because of exams. I really have no energy left in me now to think of the exam process and how dreadful it was. I think it's time to say thank you and goodbye to 2023, clearly I haven't done that yet.

Let's keep it neat in 2024, simple plans and simple goals. To get them is the only goal in itself. I'm excited for 2024, I'm excited for what's ahead, but also a little nervous because you never really know what's in store. I hope it's more blogging though, more podcast episodes and more diary entries. Also less fear of the courses I'm doing and more engagement, that will surely make the process more smoother.

I hope the new year has been good to you so far, and that it will continue to be.

#wrapped