Every year I tell myself I want to start blogging again. And every year I don’t because, my life is generally mundane, and I don’t want to talk publically about the interesting bits. There are no grand ideas to share and no experiences that are not common to many, so I leave it for another year.

But then I find a goldmine in my old Xanga and Livejournal from an angsty teen and nerdy college student, and the reflectiveness of those posts makes me want to blog again — the old fashion way. Maybe 2023 will be that year… or maybe this will be the only post I post until five years from now when the itch starts again.

— Thing One —

Let’s get it out of the way… I bought a thing. The thing is a house. I did it all by myself. I am proud of myself for doing this; I’m also terrified! There’s so much to learn and it’s hard not having Mom here, and with Dad being unable to help physically I find myself on Reddit and YouTube a lot, so it feels a little bit like discovering everything on my own. I do have a lot of uncles and aunts who I can call and ask for advice, which I appreciate, but as a person who has an independent streak, it’s hard to ask for advice outside of Mom and Dad.

Another thing I’m learning is that working with vendors is tough! I’ve had so many people not call me back, or come and give a quote and then ghost me afterwards. I thought it was just me until I read other people’s experiences and felt a little seen.

The one thing that I do love about this experience though is the tiny bits of joy that I find when I am looking at something I put together, like the shoe rack at the entrance, or even the simple fact that I now have floodlights and can see outside in the dark.

— Thing Two —

It feels like I’m coming out of a two-year hibernation, and seeing a changed world. Everything changed while I had to deal with loss and uncertainties. And while I know these feelings were not unique to me, seeing everything move forward as I grieved, or tried to figure out “the system” to get my dad the most help has made me want to slip back into hermitage.

I’m so thankful for the friends that I have that have continually reached out to me and kept invitations open while I figured out how to move forward. I will forever be grateful for this family.

— Thing Three —

Everyone should think of what they are leaving behind for their family. If you have anything – even if you just have a bank account – think of what happens after you pass. I could go into details, but this isn’t something I want to talk about in this format. Maybe in a few months when I have it all sorted in my own head. But estate planning is not just for the old.

— Thing Four—

Libraries and audiobooks are two of my favourite things. I love owning books, but when my personal library book count hit 800 books I knew I had to slow down. I dream of the library in Beauty and the Beast, but I don’t have the space (yet), so I did the next best thing, became a heavy user of the public library. Since 2020 I’ve borrowed over 200 books from the NYPL (and other public libraries) and almost all of them were audiobooks! It’s amazing the accessibility to audiobooks that the library provides. By reading audiobooks I was able to read 177 books in 2022.

I know it’s sometimes tough to pay attention to an audiobook. I started my audiobook run after getting comfortable listening to podcasts. Since my mind often wanders I had to train it to pay attention to what I was listening to, and the trick I found was to listen to the podcast sped up which in turn made me pay attention to what they were saying. Same with audiobooks – I find that if I listen to them at the speed my mind is thinking I pay a lot more attention than if I listen at 1x speed.

— Thing Five —

Ending on a fun note, Animal Crossing and Spiritfarer helped me through 2020 and 2021. Now cozy games are my favourite gaming genre. There are a few more that I played a lot, but these two really were the games for me and come highly recommended.

~*~

But I’ve loved you, and that won’t stop even if I’m not around anymore.

– Spiritfarer