Recap 2019.

I didn’t think this was necessary because I only started writing consistently since April but so much has happened this year, I felt like I had to document my important milestones and I just want to take a moment to celebrate everything that I’ve achieved since the beginning of this year, no matter how big or small it is. It’s little things like these that keep me going.

In January, I was battling with a serious creativity block, which also affected my writing. So all I could manage was that one post, which was a poem (The Letters Unsent.). Otherwise, January was about catching up with friends whom I hadn’t seen in a very long time, and slowly trying to get my creativity back. I got a whole new set of paints, new brushes and canvases and surprisingly did a pretty good job of it. So I’ll take that as a win!

In February, I did something totally crazy! One fine day, I was feeling artsy, so I covered myself in glitter and did a whole photo shoot. Of course, it was messy; took me around 4 baths to get the glitter off of me. But I realized that I have never been that dedicated to art before that moment in my life. It was way out of my comfort zone and I am glad I took that step. I also tried an entirely new form of art and it worked out pretty well, too! I guess this February was all about art for me.

March, for me, was all about self-care. I started working out after a very, very long time because I realized how much I had let myself go in the last few years. I started out slowly, but I was determined to work on improving myself. It wasn’t easy because I was trying to get back to something that I hadn’t done in years. But the results haven’t disappointed me. And somewhere along the way, I also learned to take time off for just myself so I could be alone with my thoughts for at least a little while every day.

April was the turning point for me. I am not a poetry person at all. But something told me that it was about time for me to get back to writing poems. So I joined in on the entire NaPoWriMo madness and wrote a poem every single day, not letting the fact that I didn’t do a very good job of it bother me. Somewhere in mid-April, I also bought the domain to this website and for the first time, truly had something to myself.

After 30 days of writing continuously in April, I didn’t feel like giving up. So I wrote for another 31 days into May. I didn’t feel like giving up when I had already been doing such a good job of taking the time out to write every day.  For the first time, I was being consistent about something I love and I didn’t want to give up. It felt right to me. I started by writing about, well, writing, and then moved on to themed posts because I felt like it was a good idea.

So, in June, I turned this entire site into my gratitude journal and wrote about 30 things that I am grateful for. The little things in life that have helped to shape me into the person I am today, the values I’ve learned and unlearned over the years, the people in my life— I tried to make sure that I wrote about everything, but hey, there’s so much to cover. I also realized that for the first time ever, I was writing even during my travels because I didn’t want to stop. I used up whatever mobile data I had to write during overnight journeys and told myself that I had no excuse to give up.

In July, I wrote about love, but not exactly in the way you think. I tried to write about the more platonic side of love that not a lot of people acknowledge because of all the sappy Netflix Rom-Coms that we have all come to love. I was pleasantly surprised to learn a lot of new facts about love and I realized that there is so much of it around us, we hardly even notice it until it’s gone. In July, I learned that love is multi-dimensional and that it is very, very complicated.

August was obviously all about friendship because Friendship Day is celebrated in the month of August (at least it is the case in India). I talked about toxic friendships, and how friendship just another type of love, online friendships, sibling friendships, sis-code, the portrayal of female friendships in pop-culture and a lot more. It was a really fun month for me, at least, writing-wise. I really felt like I got a lot of topics covered.

I decided to make September all about self-love and self-care because I felt like there weren’t too many people talking about it. I thought that if I could reach out to even a handful of people, I would have done a good job because self-love and self-care are often associated with eating healthy or living the way you want, but it’s so much more than that. I made listicles and playlists for whoever might need them and I made sure that I reached out to people through this platform.

And then came October, which happens to be my birthday month! So I decided to go ahead and make the whole month about self-discovery because, why not? And in the process, I realized that I didn’t belong at my day job because I was getting too comfortable. It was time to move on to things that I really want from life, such as writing a book, so I quit my job and ever since, I’ve been a lot more focused on my writing.

In November, I realized that the whole idea of themed posts was getting a little monotonous. So I started writing on random topics once again, while still writing every day. I don’t know why, but I remembered that this site was supposed to be kind of like a public journal and for the past few months, I hadn’t really been doing what I started this site for. So I started writing about normal, random, everyday things that we all think, but don’t know how exactly to put into words.

Which leaves us with December. I continued on my random post streak, but I took the randomness a little further by also writing a bit of poetry in between. To be honest, I haven’t exactly been in the best place mentally this month, which has led me to a lot of misunderstandings, overthinking and a lot of self-inflicted misery in general. Of course, I just needed a break because I have been at this for over 270 days now and for somebody who has never been this consistent, it is a big deal. Nevertheless, I have successfully managed to rise above the circumstances and still voice my opinions, so points for that!

Life-wise, this entire year has been about art for me. Art and the place it holds in my life. I have learned so much and I’m still learning. And like everybody I have big plans for 2020. I have a bunch of things planned for months now and I cannot wait to enter a new decade with all new-positivity.

What did your year look like?

Cheerio! Xx

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Yours truly,
The Shubhster.

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Featured Image by Paul Green on Unsplash