W e l l    h e l l o    t h e r e.

Welcome to the first in a series of posts where I’ll share snippets of my life 🙂 It can be either a day in my life, a week in my life, or a weekend in my life. Basically, anything I’m in the mood for at that moment. My goal for this series is to develop a photographic scrapbook of a kind where I can have a compilation of photos associated with a certain time period that I can look back at a later time. I started to do this in 2019 or 2018 when I was in uni and I love looking back at them. They were also so fun to make.

This post should have gone up in December but I decided to hold off on it and post it in 2021 to kick of this series. This post covers the weekend before I went home for the holidays which conveniently consisted of my birthday. So grab a cup of something hot and enjoy!

Birthday – December 14th

This was such a weird day emotionally. The past few weeks have been pretty hard, especially with the time change. Things have been getting darker faster and the overwhelming presence of loneliness has grown so strong. Which is weird because I love being lonely. I’m such an independent, solo person. It took me almost eight months to realize how much I, as a human being, rely on a routine. By a routine, I don’t mean waking up at 5 a.m, doing an early morning work out, bust your a$$ 9-5, come home and do a fancy night time routine to wind down. I mean basic human things, such as going to a store or being in a room and being surrounded by the ambience of fellow humans conversing. When covid struck, many of us lost that ability to indulge in routines such as that. I personally have not been in a store since March. I miss the library (which I’m still scared to go to even though I’m sure it’s fine to check out books). I miss having the opportunity to hang out with my friends or seeing my family.

I’m such a homebody I dream of coming home and curling up in my bed or a couch with a book or a show but I still crave the knowledge that I can do other things if I want to. And with everything getting darker so much faster, time literally slipping away, I think it finally hit me how much our lives changed since Covid hit.

This is the first birthday I had that I didn’t spend with my family. Even when I was in uni, I’d be home for winter break and my family and I’d celebrate together. We never did anything big, we cut a cake and maybe watched a movie together. So today was a bit melancholy. The day started off in such a me way. I’m known for tumbling and my many crazy life experiences and today added a new story to the unfortunately never ending list.

I straight ups quit fell on the way to work and managed to skid fall face first onto the cement. I managed to scratch up my elbows so bad that I was sitting at my cubicle, unable to bend my arms. I’m much better now but the real victim of that morning spill was my new jacket I specifically wore for my birthday. RIP old navy Black Friday purchase.

The rest of the day was so amazing though. My parents surprised me continuously through out the day by mailing me food, a cake, and even take out. It was so sweet of them to do it and honestly, it felt like they were with me all through out the day.

Fog – December 16th

Today was crazy. When I walked out of my apartment, it felt like I was walking into a cloud. Driving to work was such a magical experience. I was listening to a podcast about how wrecked and sketchy America’s medical system is and it was quite an appropriate listen for how eerie the morning was. I usually dread my morning walk to work but today was an exception.

Sunset – December 17th 

I was so happy when I left work today and I think the world was a bit excited for me to. I came home to such a beautiful sunset that I had to go on a walk in my work outfit. So work jacket and all, I walked around with my thrown back, just staring at the sky. This week was so crazy. I think doing something new is exciting but also equally terrifying. And during holidays, especially the winter holidays, there’s a different kind of hum in whatever your work environment may be (uni, office work, at home work, etc.). The excitement to wrap up things but also the rush to get things started is almost tangible. It made me realize that my work period in 2020 was officially over. The next time I’d work, it would be 2021. One year of this decade has been etched off. I think every new hire had a certain vision when it came to their entry into work but working during a pandemic is a whole other story. It made me think of my 2021 goals and expectations and how different they will be in comparison to previous years. Will I want to do more? Or will I be aiming for less than I usually do because what I aim to do is a lot more mentally taxing than it was in previous years? Walking into the orange purple sunset, I wondered how exactly this unpredictable global disaster will taint our hopes and dreams for the next 365 days.

Covid Testing – December 18th

Get tested people. GET T E S T E D. I’ve heard so many people’s conversations on how they don’t care about getting tested before visiting their families or going on holidays. It is so selfish and disastrous to be so careless and nonchalant. The world is revealing itself to be such a selfish place and I think we all knew that pre-pandemic but Covid really is showing humanity in a whole new light. All that being said, I went to get tested today because I am going home and want to make sure I’m negative beforehand. I spent most of today just lying in bed watching tiki’s Tok compilations and I don’t even feel bad about it. Okay, I felt a bid bad because I wanted to productively enjoy my day which means reading or journaling or watching a tv show, not just whatever YouTube recommends but I stopped that self-destructive thought right away. I really need to learn to live in the moment and stop beating myself over not living out my vision of fun.

Sushi, Journaling, and Presents – December 22nd

Today was my last day at my apartment and I took great advantage of it. I did all my packing the day before and today, I did all the things I wanted to do before I went home. Which basically equates to a lot of journaling and treating myself to whatever I want. Today, that happened to be a lot of Netflix reruns, sushi, and journal spreads. I haven’t had sushi in such a long time and I’m so glad I found a local place that does delivery and is CHEAP AND AFFORDABLE. I recapped all my 2020 reading favorites and I love how it’s a blend of genres and that there was a non-fiction! Making this spread, I realized how excited I am for my reading in 2021. I want to read so many different books outside of my comfort genre (romance) and I’m excited for it. Don’t get me wrong, I still probably always will fall back onto romance because it’s such a comforting genre for me but I’m hoping to read more middle grade, non-fiction, memoirs, and historical and science based texts.

Talking about journaling, I was also surprised by a delivery my friend had mailed me. My friend custom made me a journal and I’m soooooo happy about it. It’s so my aesthetic and I’m so excited to make a dent into it. There’s nothing more pleasing than a blank journal waiting to be filled.

Today was basically a day where I felt very grateful and thankful towards the people in my life and well myself. I’m privileged to be able to take time off and afford things, to have family members who care for me, and friends who think of me.

And on that note, I’ll bring this ~week in my life to an end with a thank you to you all. Thanks for following me, supporting me, and just being you.

I hope that 2021 is the year we’ll find a new normal in the unprecedented <3