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gracia-suficiente · 4 years

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Despite doing a year recap post for 8 years now, I contemplated not doing a post this year. 2020 has been one of the worst years of my life, from the very start of it. There’s a lot from this year that I don’t want to remember, that I want to get away from as soon as I can. But, I have also learned a lot from these hard times. And I hope one day to re-read this post and think, “Gosh, I had it bad, but I made it.” So here’s my 2020:

Like I mentioned, January 2020 started off rough. My family and I almost lost my sister. I won’t go into detail but getting that call was one of the worst days of my life. It didn’t feel real. It felt like I was living a nightmare and it was so hard to see my parents go through the fallout of it all. The only good thing I can remember from that month was meeting my now good friend, Evan. To be honest, I’ve always been kinda attracted to him. I’d see him around the office and thought he was handsome and nice. We were on the same audit and he actually invited me to lunch one day (1/15 to be exact, I may or may not still have the email he sent me) and we clicked instantly! We became fast friends and even started to hang out outside of work soon after.

February was still stressful because of everything that happened with my sister in January. She was back home and it was hard to see her recover slowly. But, February was probably my favorite month of the year. Evan and I hung out quite a bit. On the first, he took me to this arcade in town and that’s when I was sure I had a crush on this man. It was so much fun! For the first time in forever, I didn’t spend Valentine’s Day alone either. I think this day was one of my favorites of the year. It was a Friday and a slow day at work so Evan stopped by my desk and asked if I wanted to go for a walk around the Capitol. This was something we had started doing frequently; he would stop by my desk or I would go by his desk to ask for a walk around to chat. We walked around the Capitol and then he asked if I had plans for the evening. He then asked if I wanted to have a happy hour with him and I said yes. We went to this small bar near the Capitol right after work and we had drinks and talked and talked and laughed and laughed. Before we knew it, THREE hours had passed. It didn’t even feel like we were there that long! We decided to head out, since it had gotten so late and neither of us had eaten anything. We walked back to the office in the night and he hugged me goodbye. On the way home, I listened to a playlist of songs I had made that reminded me of him and I was the happiest girl in Austin that night. Evan also invited me to a food tasting event that weekend on 2/19 and the waitress thought we were on a date and we didn’t correct her. February was also great workwise; I planned my first Wellness event as Coordinator and it was a success! The audit that I was working on was also picking up (I like to be busy). A group of work friends and I started monthly game nights too. It was so nice and fun to finally have a solid friend group. Lastly, I saw The Jungle Giants (2/16) and Beach Bunny (2/28) which ended up being my only two concerts of the year because…

The coronavirus hit in March. Well, that’s when the first shutdown/quarantine happened. I remember hearing about the virus in China but really didn’t pay much attention to it (I was obviously very distracted at the beginning of the year lolol). But Friday the 13th, I packed up some things from my desk and had to telecommute indefinitely. I don’t really remember feeling scared or even too worried. I thought it would all blow over relatively quickly. Boy, was I wrong. My parents came to visit for spring break, along with my brother and sister. It was so nice to see them but also hard to see my sister, who was still recovering. We didn’t get to do much either because soon after they got to Austin, the city shut down. It was really hard to go from having a busy life to not leaving my apartment at all. Another bad thing was that I had taken part of the CPA exam this month and found out I had failed. It sucked but if I’m being honest, I didn’t study as much as I should have. But one good thing was Evan. Wow he really was an anchor during this hard year. Despite the stay at home regulations, we kept hanging out. I know it wasn’t the most responsible thing to do, but we always hung out at home or outside and I really needed to see another person after spending my work week completely alone. He plays guitar and suggested that we learn to play a song together (since I play piano) so we started learning to play The Scientist by Coldplay.

April was another difficult month. Spending Holy Week completely alone was rough. The thing I wanted and needed most (the Eucharist) was unavailable to me because the churches were closed. Things were getting really bad in Europe and New York. I cried so much during Holy Week. Work was getting stressful too. But again, Evan was a constant. By this point, we were texting nearly every day and hanging out almost every weekend. I really enjoyed spending time with him. Not sure if this happened in April but one Saturday, we went geocaching and we found an Office themed geocache where we had to use a laser-pointer to find trees that eventually led to a box of trinkets. That was such a fun day.

Work was insane in May. I had never felt so busy before! One good thing about working from home is that when you’re extremely stressed, you can cry and no one will know. Things slowly started to open up again and I was able to go to reconciliation for the first time in 2.5 months. That was a blessing. Porter Robinson held his Secret Sky Fest, a virtual festival of EDM artists that was so much fun to jam out to alone in my apartment. I really missed live music and even though it wasn’t the same, it was still a good time. Evan and I kept hanging out and practicing our song. We even recorded a video of us playing together and it’s the cutest thing ever. Also, there was one Saturday in particular that sticks out to me: May 23. But we spent nearly all day together, playing music, drinking on his porch, getting dinner, sharing intimate details about our lives, and then playing board games with his brother when he got home from work. That day was another one of my favorites of the year.

June was a bittersweet month. I went home for my brother’s high school graduation. I had never seen the airport so empty in my life. My sister and I actually weren’t able to go to the ceremony and we had to watch it at home on the TV. But it was fun to celebrate with him and my family afterward. I worked from my hometown for a while and it was so nice to get to see my best friend and grandpas again. I really didn’t do too much with them as we were all being cautious. But this was the month that Evan told me that he started online dating again. I was crushed. I knew we were just friends but I liked him and thought he might have liked me too, considering how often he was texting me and asking to hangout. I was so confused because it felt like we had just gotten so much closer recently and I thought it might be leading to something more than friendship. But I was wrong.

I went back home in July again for my brother’s birthday. My parents had a small birthday/graduation party for him and it was nice to be back home again. The summer blues were really hitting me hard this month and you’d think that Taylor Swift releasing a surprise album would be a huge plus. But it gave me depression lolol It’s a sad album and her song “August” described exactly how I felt about Evan and his new girlfriend. I spent many summer nights, crying and drinking wine listening to this album. I don’t like summer and the things that make summer bearable (cool movie theaters and pools and air-conditioned museums) were taken away from me. Work was incredibly stressful too.

I don’t remember much of August to be honest. I was depressed and lonely and the summer heat was killing me. Work was continuing to be stressful and I wanted the audit to be over with. I was also upset because I didn’t get to hang out with Evan as much. He had been seeing this one girl seriously and I didn’t feel right hanging out with him one on one. There were a couple of highlights: I got to see one of my good friends/coworkers, Alana, for the first time since everything shut down. She is such a light and I really enjoy her friendship, even though we aren’t super close. Also, I got promoted on the 21st! It came as a complete surprise to me, considering that I had just gotten promoted the year before. Although a lot of managers had told me that I was already working at a higher level, I didn’t really feel like I was ready for a promotion so I was SO shocked when my manager called to let me know.

September was another weird month. By then, I was eagerly awaiting the holidays and the end of an already too long year. My depression was subsiding but I didn’t feel like my old self either. I celebrated my birthday with my cousin, who moved to my city in July. I am so thankful for her and her love; I probably would’ve spent my day alone if it wasn’t for her. We didn’t get to do all that we planned to do (there was a flash flood) but we did get to go to dinner! A few days later, Evan treated me to ramen and wine and we had dinner at my place and we talked for the first time in a while. It was such a sweet gesture from him and I felt bad that I didn’t do anything for his birthday.

October started off well with a few virtual concerts (Future Islands and Hippo Campus) and then my mom came to town halfway through the month because I had FINALLY scheduled my wisdom tooth removal. The surgery had to be postponed for a week (my dentist’s thermometer said I had a fever, but I ended up being fine and even tested negative for COVID. Idk what happened with that but it was annoying) so my mom stayed a little while longer. Then, on October 27, my dad called my mom to tell her that my grandpa had passed away. It was such a shock and completely unexpected. That day is one of the worst of my life and that’s when 2020 took a turn for the worst. Instead of getting my surgery later that week, I packed my bags and drove back home with my mom.

November was grief and exhaustion. I worked from my parent’s home and the audit wasn’t particularly stressful, thankfully. I was upset that I didn’t really get to say goodbye to my Austin friends (*cough* Evan *cough cough*) but I was also glad to not be alone anymore, after spending a good majority of 2020 alone in my apartment. The COVID cases in my hometown were at an all-time high though so I didn’t get to see any of my friends or even much of my family. It was heartbreaking going to my grandparents’ house, now completely empty, and see that everything was just as my grandpa had left it. Thanksgiving was sad and small.

Work was busier in December but thankfully it never got to an overwhelming place. My family was FINALLY able to lay my grandpa to rest on December 10. With all the COVID restrictions and the increase in deaths, it took forever for my grandpa’s funeral to be arranged. It was a small ceremony with maybe 15 people and I cried throughout the entire thing. We didn’t get to do a proper military burial for him (because of restrictions) but he did get a flag presentation. I helped my family clean out my grandparents’ house and I actually got to keep a few of my grandmother’s clothing and jewelry pieces! It was nice to have some of her things to cherish. Also, Taylor surprised us AGAIN with another glorious album. It was as if she knew that I needed something on the 10th to make me feel better after the funeral. I was able to take off a couple of weeks from work and I cherished those days off. It was nice getting to spare some carefree time with my family, sister who had come back from NYC, and cousin. I also finally saw my best friend and even got to meet her new boyfriend. It made me so happy to see how happy she was with him. The holidays were still bittersweet because I missed my grandparents and our Christmas celebration was much smaller than usual. But I did get to help my dad make tamales and we got to go to mass for the first time since Thanksgiving! The year ended on a bit of a sour note for me because I awkwardly confessed my feelings for Evan and even though he reciprocated them, he said he didn’t want to date me. I was really hoping to end the year on a high note. I was really hoping that I could have one good thing and that things could work out with us. It was sad to hear him say that he was seeing someone else and as much as he liked me (and he REALLY liked me), it wasn’t enough to break up with this other girl and try things with me.

And that was my 2020, not including all the horrific things that happened in America and the world that just added to my stress and anxiety. I’m not sure how I feel about 2021. I didn’t even make New Year’s resolutions this year because they feel pointless to me. I’m trying to be hopeful but honestly, it’s been hard to do. I still miss my grandparents so so so much and even the thought of them brings tears to my eyes. Evan is still dating this girl and tells me about her and I have to pretend like it doesn’t hurt because we agreed to be friends. I don’t have any audits lined up after my current assignment. I’m staying home and trying not to see my friends as often because COVID is creeping up again but it makes me feel isolated and bad that I can’t see them. I miss Austin but also don’t want to go back to being completely alone again. I’m finding it hard to get on a good prayer schedule. So please pray for me and my family and the repose of the soul of my grandparents. I can’t wait for the day when I can read this and hurt for my past self, but also know that I’ve made it to somewhere better.

#personal #long #long post #2020

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dandelliongirl · 5 years

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Summer is here

and I’m living my best life. ♥

So my last post was from my birthday week literally two months ago! Whoops.. In my defense May was crazy busy.

So I celebrated my birthday with lots of friends. I went on a picnic on my birthday and to a restaurant and for a walk the day after. Me and my friend got to celebrate our combined 50th birthday (25+25) with pizzas and free dessert. My guy got me a glass nail file, some cute lingerie and a DVD of the first season of Miraculous Ladybug for my birthday! ♥

The week after my birthday we celebrated May Day at our place. We had three friends come over, we made doughnuts, talked, ate lots, played Captain is Dead and Spyfall. Spyfall was surprisingly fun and I was pretty good at it. I’m generally not good at games that require roleplaying, creativity and spontaneous storytelling but it was nice to be rewarded for going outside my comfort zone.

All of May was super busy with housing board meetings, last minute ballet rehearsals, lots of stuff to do at work, dance rehearsals for graduation, ballet recital and finally graduation weekend. On the 12th we had a mother’s day lunch with my mum, grandmum, grandpa and uncle at our summer house. They also got to see my new cottage that grandmum and grandpa have been such a big influence in designing and decorating.

The week of ballet recitals was really busy. I went on a work trip from 4am until 9pm and had my only dress rehearsal right after that. My guy’s sister came over and she’s had some big life changes happen to her lately so it took a while talking with her and catching up. I tried out an Abs & Booty class and a HIIT 45′ class that week since ballet classes ended and I ended up really liking the HIIT class. I mean - it was really painful and hard but that kind of made me really motivated to get better at it. I felt like I did so much more than I thought I could and really drove myself to my limits, so although it isn’t as fun as BodyCombat I still felt really motivated! Besides it’s only 45 minutes and a really effective workout. On Saturday me and my guy had graduation dance rehearsals from 12 to 3pm, and my ballet recital started at 3pm. I didn’t go on stage until before 4pm so I made it there well on time. It was pretty nerve racking to go on stage without a proper dress rehearsal since I had to skip the morning sesh, but nothing awful happened and all went well. On Sunday I had two more recitals at 3pm and 6pm. The weather was amazing and I felt really sad staying inside all weekend though.. Especially since the next week was pretty rainy and cold.

The last weekend of May was filled with graduation. Friday morning started with the last dance rehearsal for the dinner ball. Then we rehearsed the actual confermement ceremony. I got out at 3 and starting at 5:30 pm me and mum went to the garland weaving ceremony and dinner. Mum made my garland for me and we had tons of fun at the ceremony. The food was really good as well, and having mum weave my garland for me felt really special. She can now say she made both the graduate and her garland. ♥ ♥ After the garland weaving I went with mum to spend the night at home. I got barely any sleep at all because I was so nervous I’d oversleep and/or screw something up at the confermement ceremony.

On Saturday morning I got dressed and put on my makeup at home. My stomach was incredibly upset and I even lost some weight just from having such a bad nervous stomach. My skirt felt like it was falling off of me. I had to be at the university by 11:15 am and the ceremony started at 12 with a procession into the hall. We had to unpin our garlands from our jackets and walk on stage to have the garland put on our heads and our rings touched before bowing to the professor, turning around and bowing to the principal and walking off the stage. It was really scary but nobody tripped. A few of the doctors almost had their hats fall off when they bowed but other than that it went off without a hitch. There were about 100 masters and 100 doctors though so the whole ceremony took a good 3 hours. Grandmum came to watch me graduate, which was really special. ♥ After the ceremony we were supposed to have a procession to the city church but the weather was pretty rainy and so we had a bus drive people there. I stayed at the uni main building to take graduation photos with my family and grandmum. Dad’s friend, who’s a photographer by profession, took my photos and they turned out really nice. Especially the pictures with my family and grandmum. ♥ I can’t wait to have them printed out.

I was done with the photoshoot around 5 pm and came to the apartment to get changed and eat a bit. Me and my guy went to the dinner dance at 6 pm to get our photo taken and settle down for dinner. It was a really formal dinner with lots of scary etiquette and several utensils for different dishes and I felt really awkward because our table was also a pretty quiet one but we had an enjoyable evening nonetheless. There were a lot of speeches, a really cute poem and some pretty decent food. Obviously dad would’ve made better food but that was fine. At 11pm it was time for the dance. It went pretty well considering people had had some alcohol by that time and we never rehearsed at the actual venue. The photographer came and messed up my guy’s steps a couple of times since we were in the front row, but other than that we did pretty well! Later on they carried a lot of important people on a carrying chair and the doctors formed a guard of honor with their swords that the professor went through. It was all very special and traditional and we stayed up all the way until the speech for the rising sun at 2 am. Then we walked home and I was glad I took my running shoes with me since I had been wearing the same heels since 10am that day. It was quite the weekend and I can’t believe how some people managed to attend Sunday’s cruise, lunch and the after party because I was completely wrecked from just two days of festivities. Also the sleep deprivation from that weekend meant that I was pretty much out of it the entire following week. I’m glad I took a day off on the 31st so that I got a 4 day weekend the next week.

We had a swelteringly hot last few days of May and beginning of June. On the 30th me and my friend both escaped work early to go on our traditional spring picnic and it was +30 degrees Celsius outside. On the 1st of June I watched two movies (Pretty Woman and Bridget Jones’s baby) with my friend from kindergarten. It was so good to see her again and hear about her busy summer plans. Her boyfriend applied for sports biology at the uni and it’s an insanely hard field to get accepted into with all the physical entrance exams, so he spent the entire evening exercising. Keeping my fingers crossed for him!

The next weekend my guy drove me to granny’s place on his way to work. I spent the day with grandmum helping her out with various little tasks and talking a lot. In the afternoon we picked up my childhood bed from my uncle’s storage and drove it to my cottage to be put together as a sofa and two extra guest beds. We missed 3 parts of the edges that have been lost somewhere but otherwise all parts were there and mum and i put the bed together over the weekend. I love having pretty much all my childhood room furniture in the new cottage. It’s been even more emotionally important than I ever thought since my room back home has been renovated and looks nothing like it did back when I lived there. I’ve gotten a piece of my childhood back and I wouldn’t change it! It’s perfect and I love my cottage more than almost anything else in the world. I’m already dreading autumn and the upcoming winter... I want to spend every waking minute at our summer house to get the most out of this summer. ☼

So holy wow - E3 and Nintendo Direct happened. At first I had the same reaction as a lot of the Animal Crossing fandom did with the trailer for New Horizons dropped. First of all I’m not in love with the whole island idea for a game that’s called Animal Forest. Secondly, I really don’t like how muted and blown out the textures on some of the items and terrain look compared to New Leaf. Also I’m still not sure about the whole paywall of Nintendo Online.. Also crafting and the Nook miles thingy seem really iffy as gameplay mechanics.. It really depends on the way they execute online and if a paid subscription is required to use any online features or not if I want to buy the game (and a whole ass console for it) in March. A lot of my concern for how I’m going to live through next winter was brushed aside with “At least I have Animal Crossing Switch to look forward to”, and not for a moment do I believe Doug Bowser’s excuse of “we don’t overwork our devs at Nintendo” and “we believe in a good work life balance for our workers”. Hello?!? Nintendo is a Japanese company and I really doubt it’s 100% because of localisation in the Treehouse team that the game has been delayed.. Anyway a 3 month wait isn’t really a big deal and it’s not like I didn’t see it coming. It’s still disappointing though, but I hope those 3 months help the team add some contrast and texture to the game because DAMN... Fingers (and animals) crossed.

On the 15th of June me and dad made a most important purchase. We split the cost of a 300€ SUP board for the summer house and I haven’t regretted a single cent of that price. I’ve spent literal hours standing, sitting and laying on the board, exploring the lake and even doing planks and downward dogs on it. There aren’t many things I love more in this world than SUP boarding.. ♥ ☼ Dad made his first fish, crepes and paella on our new barbeque/firepit and we got to enjoy some delicious food. I also bought my first set of Sylvanian Families (Calico Critters for the US I think?) toys and furniture. I’ve wanted some for years but couldn’t justify buying any because I had no space to store them in. Now that my childhood dream has come true with the new cottage I decided I’d finally start my own dollhouse collection over there with Sylvanian families. I bought a second hand house for them and borrowed some furniture from my boyfriend’s sister’s dollhouse. I can’t wait to take them over to the cottage!

Last Monday the student services at my uni took a summer trip to a national park. We took a bus to a little port, a boat where we had some fish soup and then we went on a hike on top of a mountain to a viewing spot. There were a ton of mosquitoes there so my hamstings looked like a pincushion after the trek but the weather was hot, the sun was shining and I enjoyed the exercise. We had some food back at the campsite and some brave souls took a dip in the lake. Then we took the boat back and drove to town. I pretty much slept on the bus because I was exhausted from all the food and fresh air. It was midsummer week so we only had Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday to work.

I’m glad I got a 3 day weekend, because I got to drive over to our summer house early on Thursday and spend the evening on the SUP board. I even swam for the first time this summer since it was such a hot day. ☼ I can’t remember the last time I’ve swam before midsummer! Dad made pizzas on the barbeque, my guy came over after work, we went to the sauna and spent the night in my little cottage. On Friday we had breakfast at my summer house and then drove over to his summer house to see his extended family. We spent the day making doughnuts, I raided (and cleaned up) my guy’s sister’s dollhouse, we had some quality time with my guy’s cousins and their partners, raised the flag for midsummer, went to the sauna, swam, started a midsummer bonfire and went to bed at 11-ish to drive to my friend’s wedding on Saturday. We started off after 6am so we got very little sleep.

The wedding was nice. We drove over with a friend and after a lot of searching for an actual gas station with bathrooms we managed to find a campsite/nature trail place with changing rooms, saunas and bathrooms to get changed in. The wedding took place in a fortress on an island so we had to be at the harbor an hour before the actual wedding. We had plenty of time to take a ferry, buy a quick snack and eat it on our way to the church. The ceremony was short and sweet, and after the ceremony we walked over to the venue. It was a cute rustic tile basement used originally for storing gunpowder. It was really nicely decorated with fairy lights and they had a super cute recycling/eco/nature theme going on (partially because transporting actual dinnerware on an island would be really hard and they were on a budget). It was a really sweet and cute wedding and much better than the previous one I went to. Still, I would’ve loved to know a bit more about the guests there as well as the couple since I basically don’t know the husband at all. There were a lot of things I would’ve done differently, and having been to two weddings now it increasingly looks like I would never want to bother organising one. It seems like so much work for one day, and people aren’t even going to enjoy themselves a whole lot... I would really want to involve my family and friends in the planning and the actual celebration, have lots of activities and take friends into consideration more as they know none of the relatives there.. Anyway right now it doesn’t look like I’ll ever get married - or that I’d even want to. Regardless it was really nice to get to be a part of my friend’s special day and I wish her the best. ♥ We drove back the same night with one stop for dinner on the way. I was back home at 1 am and in bed around 2 am. Sunday was spent shopping for groceries, napping, cooking and recovering from the midsummer festivities.

In the spirit of my return to childhood I started rewatching H2O Just Add Water for the first time in years. I love how it brings me back to being a preteen, waking up in the summer mornings to watch TV and spending endless vacation days swimming and hanging out with dad at home. It makes it truly seem like summer and like I’m on vacation even though I’m at work.

Work is really busy and we’re under a lot of pressure right now with people going on holidays and sending millions of emails and support requests daily. I don’t mind it too much, I’ve reached a chill place of “this is just work and I do what I can without compromising my freetime and wellbeing” and I’ve learned to let a lot of things go. I’m excited to see where we’ll be at on the 1st of August when everything should be ready to go with the new data system. Right now it looks pretty bad but we don’t want our end users to know that. Heh. I’m starting my holidays in pretty much exactly two weeks and my colleague and boss are starting theirs tomorrow. I’m excited to have a chill few weeks by myself. I’m also really looking forward to going on a road trip with my guy to hopefully go buy more stuff for my Sylvanian chocolate bunny family! I have so many things to look forward to this summer.. ☼ ♥ I just hope the weather stays nice so I can get a lot more swimming and SUP boarding in before autumn comes. I need full batteries to survive the winter.

I went rollerblading with dad today for the first time this summer and it was a lot of fun! I can’t wait to do more of that. My guy came home since he has a day off tomorrow and had Kendo practise tonight. I’m going to go edit some of the wedding photos so that I can share them with my friends and especially the bride. I’m hoping to stay more up to date with blogging now that life is more chill and I’m on the PC after work a bit more often. I won’t stress about it though, I just really like to record my life and thoughts every now and again, and I start feeling all scattered if I don’t do it for a while. Also I dislike these mega long posts because I always miss important details and it’s a whole ordeal that takes hours to write down. Anyway going to watch Mischa play Twilight Princess and edit photos. I just cried hearing the Wii start screen music for TP and realized what a truly lifechanging experience this game was for me, and how nothing else can really take it’s place. I’m excited to watch someone experience it for the first time. ♥

#personal #diary #June2019

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