The further away I am from my college days, the more I realized something about adult life: there are no purely good or purely bad days. The same applies to years.
2015 will go down in my memory as the year that I lost my bearings. I changed jobs twice, took a sizeable pay cut, fell into depression, lost a puppy to an illness, contracted both German measles and amoebiasis, spent most of the year carrying the kind of slow boiling anger that weighs on your chest and sends your blood pressure spiraling out of control.
But it’s also the year that I went to Japan for the first time ever, which has been a dream of mine since I first started watching anime. My braces came off, too, after ten long years. For the first time in more than a decade, my hair was at a very short length. This was also the year that I gained seven beautiful puppies (and kept three), moved to a job that allowed me to see my boyfriend five days a week as opposed to the once-or-twice every two weeks (incidentally, this was also the year we celebrated our fifth anniversary). I remembered, belatedly, my grad school plans and dreams, and began to move in that direction again, monetary hits aside. I completed the zero draft of a book and learned that one of my stories was on the 2015 James Tiptree Jr. Award Recommended Works list. There was also helping run a fundraiser for a friend, and helping fund a few more despite my money problems.
Sadly, I did not get to complete some of the lofty goals I set for myself. For one, I only managed 80 out of the 100 books goal of my Goodreads Reading Challenge (81 if you count Asa Ka Awan Du Vatan by Victoria Abad Kerblat, which has no Goodreads entry), though that’s not bad at all when you consider the numbers. There’s a bunch more, but I’d rather get into the goals I’m setting for myself for next year, which are rather small. However, I’ve learned this year that small, specific, and concrete wins the day. Without further ado:
- Lose 10 pounds this January. (Related: More regular exercise every Saturday.)
- 100 books for the Goodreads Reading Challenge–this time, try to make a dent in my existing TBR pile.
- Write more duds. Which means completing a zero draft every month.
- Submit to magazines once a month, or as responses return.
I hope 2016 is awesome for you!
Vida Cruz 