Retrospect: 2018
This year has been an extraordinary year, with extreme highs and lows, pain and difficulties, love and happiness. I want to take a while to recap each month and recount some of the highlights of this year, as well as some of the low points.
January:
Came in with a bang. A month in which I was still working on finding my footing as a person, as most of the year has been. I started the month off in Raleigh, fulfilling one of my goals of trying new things. I went roller-blading and visited the NC Museum of Art. This was also the month I started really getting into David Byrne and the Talking Heads -- musical and philosophical influences that would help shape the rest of my year. Kicked off the second semester at Pfeiffer University. A challenging semester, but I managed to make it through without too many hiccups. The semester in which I took the digital photography class offered at the university -- a class that would help shape me as a photographer and give me the roots to really start building a photography portfolio.
February:
Forever known as the month I saw St. Vincent in concert. That night will forever be immortalized in my memory. Also the month I picked up a little hobby I like to call: reading reviews of common household objects on Walmart's website. A tiring month, spent mostly on school. The month my best friend, Isaiah, told me he'd had feelings for me since we met. I'd had my suspicions about this for a long time, but February 14th at 2:03 am, I got confirmation. I spent a lot of time listening to music and expanding my musical taste. I believe this was the time Sylvan Esso really hit my heavy rotation on Spotify.
March:
Spring break month, though I didn't go anywhere spectacular on my spring break, like most people do. Again, a month I remember spending a lot of time trying to figure out the person that I want to be. 2017 was a miserable year for me, spent mostly in self-loathing and depressive episodes. The first few months of 2018 were spent as healing times for me. I was attempting to take hold of my life again, as well as figure out my identity as an individual. School and work came as needed distractions during this time, as I couldn't spend all of my time in my head. I work best when I have a lot of work to do, and time to do it. My digital photography class was really helpful in getting life back in my lungs.
April:
The last month of the semester. The month I went to the doctor was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. A lot of the past four months made sense at that point. I now knew why I felt like I couldn't breathe and spent a lot of my time feeling like I was about to die. I knew why my heart had felt like it was trying to escape my ribs most of the time. I understood why I had to think through every step of everything I had to do multiple times in my head before I would actually do it. I now knew why some days, being out of the house and around other people was just too much to handle. I knew why I would have panic attacks seemingly at random. This was the month I started taking medicine to help my anxiety.
May:
Started with finals week, and I finished the semester strong, a comeback after having the flu twice during the semester. Spent a week in Franklin with my family. That was the most time I had spent in my hometown since my family moved to the central part of NC in 2007. It was an emotional experience to be back there for such a long time after being away with only short visits for eleven years. This was a time in which I felt like I had finally healed from 2017 and could start to really move forward with myself as a person. This was the month I began to feel really attached to Isaiah, who I had by this time nicknamed Izzy. My VW Beetle, affectionately named Roger, died shortly after the semester ended. Couldn't save him unfortunately, even after my dad and I spent hours upon hours digging around under the hood.
June:
Birthday month. Turned 19 and the week of my birthday was honestly a difficult one. I struggled with handling the fact that I have been on this Earth for 19 years, and I had some realizations about years prior that began to make sense. I began to realize that I had caught feelings for Isaiah and had an overabundance of inner conflict about it. I didn't want to potentially ruin my relationship with my best friend with a romantic relationship gone bad. I was still without a car at this point, and about to go stir-crazy from being stuck at home most of the time. I was away from my studio and art supplies for the month.
July:
The month started with a crash, literally. Car accident in Charleston on the 3rd and the weeks following can only be described as hellish. My body kept remembering every moment for the first few days following the accident, and every time it did, a panic attack followed. My medication dosage doubled, and has remained that way since then. My feelings for Isaiah grew stronger, and he constantly checked on me after the accident. My dad drove me down to my studio one day so I could get some supplies from my studio and bring them back home. I made a sad oil painting of sunflowers. It's propped up at the front of a stack of paintings in my studio now. July remains hazy in my memory, a blur of physical pain and panic attacks. Regression in the progress I'd made since April.
August:
Isaiah's birthday was the 4th, and I sent him videos of me playing guitar and singing, as well as a long letter reflecting on our friendship. Signed "with love." By this time, I was fully aware of the feelings I had for Izzy, and was dealing with an overwhelming amount of inner conflict because of it. I spent the weekend before the semester began helping lead seminars for Pfeiffer's It's On Us group for the incoming class of freshmen. I was working nearly nonstop for 48 hours at one point. I had little sleep, but was full of energy. The semester started and I crashed, got sick, had inflamed ribs for months following, couldn't feel rested no matter how much I slept, and felt I had hit a brick wall with creativity. However, the night after the first day of classes, I told Isaiah how I felt about him, and the next day, we were officially dating. I spent the rest of the semester playing catch-up after being physically ill for so long.
September:
A month spent trudging along through work and classes, homework and assignments. Izzy and I had our one month anniversary, and by this time, we had created a tradition of long distance date night, in which we fix food and snacks, light candles, and watch movies at the same time. Hurricane season really messed with the semester -- we had too many days of closures and all my classes got behind schedule. This month made the rest of the semester extremely difficult, as it continued to throw everyone at Pfeiffer off stride. Nobody could find their footing and settle into a regular schedule all semester. Work began to stack up and become overwhelming.
October:
Halloween month, the best month. Izzy and I spent a lot of time watching horror movies. We had incorporated video chatting into our date nights, and we talked on the phone and video chat perhaps more than we did over messages. This was the month that I told my parents about Isaiah. My friend, Kaitlyn, and I did a performance art piece for our art history class, and I had the bright idea to include pouring a gallon of water over myself. I didn't consider the weather at the time until the day we were set to film, but I went with it anyway.
November:
By far, one of the most physically taxing months of the year. So much time was spent on campus working, and there was so much sleep lost that month. Once again for the art history class, Kaitlyn and I teamed up to do an installation piece -- we turned one of the studios into a deep sea environment with jellyfish hanging from the ceiling. It was a totally immersive piece. Unfortunately, I know the NC humidity has gotten to it now and most of the jellyfish are sitting in limp piles on the floor. The end of the month was spent mostly wrapping up assignments and attempting to get ready for finals week, though finals week is a special kind of hell of which there is no way to prepare properly for.
December:
Started the month with finals week attempting to kill me. I believe I got maybe twelve hours of sleep in a three or four day period. In addition to this, the second to last day of finals, my right shoulder finally decided it had enough and all the muscles along the shoulder blade were in knots. Only now, as I write this, has most of the pain gone away. While the month started off extremely rough, it got better drastically when Izzy arrived in NC on the 13th. He then spent the week with my family and I at one of my favorite places in the world, the Outer Banks. That Wednesday, the 19th, was when Izzy proposed to me. My reaction was "of course, baby!" when he asked me. It was one of the best weeks of my life (with more details to come in a future post). It was extremely sad when he had to go back home to Indiana, but he will be visiting again soon in just a few short months. I've readjusted to life back at home after spending a week with him, and I've started doing a lot of painting, which has brightened my mood a lot. I'm gathering ideas for what I want to do with my art once the semester begins and I'm back in my studio on a regular basis.
2018 was a year filled with some extreme difficulties and trying times, but ultimately has become one of the most happy and fulfilling years I've had so far. I know 2019 will have new obstacles, but I look forward to facing them. There are a lot of new and exciting things that 2019 will bring, and I can't wait to start this next chapter of my life. I'm sure the new year will bring difficulties and challenges, and bad days too, but I know that it will also have some extremely happy days and new, exciting opportunities. As we embark on this new year, I leave you with some wisdom from one of my favorite motivators, Bob Ross:
Happy New Year, everybody. Let's make it a good one.
Came in with a bang. A month in which I was still working on finding my footing as a person, as most of the year has been. I started the month off in Raleigh, fulfilling one of my goals of trying new things. I went roller-blading and visited the NC Museum of Art. This was also the month I started really getting into David Byrne and the Talking Heads -- musical and philosophical influences that would help shape the rest of my year. Kicked off the second semester at Pfeiffer University. A challenging semester, but I managed to make it through without too many hiccups. The semester in which I took the digital photography class offered at the university -- a class that would help shape me as a photographer and give me the roots to really start building a photography portfolio.
February:
Forever known as the month I saw St. Vincent in concert. That night will forever be immortalized in my memory. Also the month I picked up a little hobby I like to call: reading reviews of common household objects on Walmart's website. A tiring month, spent mostly on school. The month my best friend, Isaiah, told me he'd had feelings for me since we met. I'd had my suspicions about this for a long time, but February 14th at 2:03 am, I got confirmation. I spent a lot of time listening to music and expanding my musical taste. I believe this was the time Sylvan Esso really hit my heavy rotation on Spotify.
March:
Spring break month, though I didn't go anywhere spectacular on my spring break, like most people do. Again, a month I remember spending a lot of time trying to figure out the person that I want to be. 2017 was a miserable year for me, spent mostly in self-loathing and depressive episodes. The first few months of 2018 were spent as healing times for me. I was attempting to take hold of my life again, as well as figure out my identity as an individual. School and work came as needed distractions during this time, as I couldn't spend all of my time in my head. I work best when I have a lot of work to do, and time to do it. My digital photography class was really helpful in getting life back in my lungs.
April:
The last month of the semester. The month I went to the doctor was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. A lot of the past four months made sense at that point. I now knew why I felt like I couldn't breathe and spent a lot of my time feeling like I was about to die. I knew why my heart had felt like it was trying to escape my ribs most of the time. I understood why I had to think through every step of everything I had to do multiple times in my head before I would actually do it. I now knew why some days, being out of the house and around other people was just too much to handle. I knew why I would have panic attacks seemingly at random. This was the month I started taking medicine to help my anxiety.
May:
Started with finals week, and I finished the semester strong, a comeback after having the flu twice during the semester. Spent a week in Franklin with my family. That was the most time I had spent in my hometown since my family moved to the central part of NC in 2007. It was an emotional experience to be back there for such a long time after being away with only short visits for eleven years. This was a time in which I felt like I had finally healed from 2017 and could start to really move forward with myself as a person. This was the month I began to feel really attached to Isaiah, who I had by this time nicknamed Izzy. My VW Beetle, affectionately named Roger, died shortly after the semester ended. Couldn't save him unfortunately, even after my dad and I spent hours upon hours digging around under the hood.
June:
Birthday month. Turned 19 and the week of my birthday was honestly a difficult one. I struggled with handling the fact that I have been on this Earth for 19 years, and I had some realizations about years prior that began to make sense. I began to realize that I had caught feelings for Isaiah and had an overabundance of inner conflict about it. I didn't want to potentially ruin my relationship with my best friend with a romantic relationship gone bad. I was still without a car at this point, and about to go stir-crazy from being stuck at home most of the time. I was away from my studio and art supplies for the month.
July:
The month started with a crash, literally. Car accident in Charleston on the 3rd and the weeks following can only be described as hellish. My body kept remembering every moment for the first few days following the accident, and every time it did, a panic attack followed. My medication dosage doubled, and has remained that way since then. My feelings for Isaiah grew stronger, and he constantly checked on me after the accident. My dad drove me down to my studio one day so I could get some supplies from my studio and bring them back home. I made a sad oil painting of sunflowers. It's propped up at the front of a stack of paintings in my studio now. July remains hazy in my memory, a blur of physical pain and panic attacks. Regression in the progress I'd made since April.
August:
Isaiah's birthday was the 4th, and I sent him videos of me playing guitar and singing, as well as a long letter reflecting on our friendship. Signed "with love." By this time, I was fully aware of the feelings I had for Izzy, and was dealing with an overwhelming amount of inner conflict because of it. I spent the weekend before the semester began helping lead seminars for Pfeiffer's It's On Us group for the incoming class of freshmen. I was working nearly nonstop for 48 hours at one point. I had little sleep, but was full of energy. The semester started and I crashed, got sick, had inflamed ribs for months following, couldn't feel rested no matter how much I slept, and felt I had hit a brick wall with creativity. However, the night after the first day of classes, I told Isaiah how I felt about him, and the next day, we were officially dating. I spent the rest of the semester playing catch-up after being physically ill for so long.
September:
A month spent trudging along through work and classes, homework and assignments. Izzy and I had our one month anniversary, and by this time, we had created a tradition of long distance date night, in which we fix food and snacks, light candles, and watch movies at the same time. Hurricane season really messed with the semester -- we had too many days of closures and all my classes got behind schedule. This month made the rest of the semester extremely difficult, as it continued to throw everyone at Pfeiffer off stride. Nobody could find their footing and settle into a regular schedule all semester. Work began to stack up and become overwhelming.
October:
Halloween month, the best month. Izzy and I spent a lot of time watching horror movies. We had incorporated video chatting into our date nights, and we talked on the phone and video chat perhaps more than we did over messages. This was the month that I told my parents about Isaiah. My friend, Kaitlyn, and I did a performance art piece for our art history class, and I had the bright idea to include pouring a gallon of water over myself. I didn't consider the weather at the time until the day we were set to film, but I went with it anyway.
November:
By far, one of the most physically taxing months of the year. So much time was spent on campus working, and there was so much sleep lost that month. Once again for the art history class, Kaitlyn and I teamed up to do an installation piece -- we turned one of the studios into a deep sea environment with jellyfish hanging from the ceiling. It was a totally immersive piece. Unfortunately, I know the NC humidity has gotten to it now and most of the jellyfish are sitting in limp piles on the floor. The end of the month was spent mostly wrapping up assignments and attempting to get ready for finals week, though finals week is a special kind of hell of which there is no way to prepare properly for.
December:
Started the month with finals week attempting to kill me. I believe I got maybe twelve hours of sleep in a three or four day period. In addition to this, the second to last day of finals, my right shoulder finally decided it had enough and all the muscles along the shoulder blade were in knots. Only now, as I write this, has most of the pain gone away. While the month started off extremely rough, it got better drastically when Izzy arrived in NC on the 13th. He then spent the week with my family and I at one of my favorite places in the world, the Outer Banks. That Wednesday, the 19th, was when Izzy proposed to me. My reaction was "of course, baby!" when he asked me. It was one of the best weeks of my life (with more details to come in a future post). It was extremely sad when he had to go back home to Indiana, but he will be visiting again soon in just a few short months. I've readjusted to life back at home after spending a week with him, and I've started doing a lot of painting, which has brightened my mood a lot. I'm gathering ideas for what I want to do with my art once the semester begins and I'm back in my studio on a regular basis.
 |
| The view coming home from Ocracoke Island. I felt like I was in a Wes Anderson movie. |
2018 was a year filled with some extreme difficulties and trying times, but ultimately has become one of the most happy and fulfilling years I've had so far. I know 2019 will have new obstacles, but I look forward to facing them. There are a lot of new and exciting things that 2019 will bring, and I can't wait to start this next chapter of my life. I'm sure the new year will bring difficulties and challenges, and bad days too, but I know that it will also have some extremely happy days and new, exciting opportunities. As we embark on this new year, I leave you with some wisdom from one of my favorite motivators, Bob Ross:
Happy New Year, everybody. Let's make it a good one.
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