This year sure was something alright… yet another chapter on my adult life, this decade has been really strange for me. From a worldwide health problem that kept us all locked inside our homes, to my stay in college for two and a half years. And 2024 has been much the same for the most part, continuing to grow and develop myself as a person. I wouldn’t necessarily say I’m more mature or anything, but I have learned a thing or two here and there. This year truly tested my patience with myself and others, ugh. But let’s begin.

General things

Overall, my mood this year has been all over the place. I’ve been feeling rather stressed about so many things, to the point where I’ve been trying to take a break and spend more time for myself. I’ve been going out a lot this year, sometimes every day, and usually to the very same places I frequent, like Asian shops, tea places and flea markets. Sometimes I’d even take the bus just to take some time to think, beacuse being at home is honestly very stressful.

On that note, my family life has only gotten worse this year. My mom and her partner kept on arguing during the year, to the point where I had to tell them to shut up. It’s gotten so bad, that they ended up breaking up back in September, she’s already had enough of his bullshit, and honestly… so have I. He’s loud, he does drugs (and it seems like he’s doubled down on them), and his coughing is so fucking annoying. The first few weeks of the breakup were really tense, and it happened right around the holidays, so being at home felt really tense. Things have since become stable, but I still don’t like having him around. He said he was gonna leave, but so far nothing. And I’d rather not ask to avoid raising tensions. While they’ll still remain friends because of my sister, I’d still like to keep my distance. And remind myself just how disappointing father figures truly are.

I’ve also been snacking a lot lately, and I’m not sure why. Maybe all this pressure is making me do it, but really, I need to start slowing down. It’s been really hard for me to keep myself from buying crap to eat or drink, but I’ll try my best going forward. I can’t say all of what I’m experiencing is any pleasent, so I suppose I need something to keep my brain out of all these situations I’m facing. It’s been rough, but I’d argue I’ve been through worse.

I do now have a new space however, which has boosted my morale quite a bit. I talked about it on my November post, but needless to say, I’m very happy with my new place. I’m slowly adding more things to it, and a new shelf is in order. And my psychologist says I’ve come a long way since I began last year, so let’s hope things remain relatively stable. Oh, and let’s not forget my hair, I let it grow out this year and it’s quite long by my standards. It was fun to experiment, but a pain to keep it around. Actually, let me show you my long hair:

Health

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve been going hard on snacks and such, and while my weight hasn’t gone up too much, I still need to keep an eye on what I eat. And then go harder on things like fruits and veggies, so that I don’t develop some nasty disease later on. I’m still prone to suffering from type 1 diabetes, so who knows if that’ll ever happen. I need to take better care of myself, I’ve been neglecting my body really hard this year.

I also suspected I might’ve had additional liver-related issues like last year, but all the blood tests came out normal and I’m healthy, or so they say anyway. I’ll continue to take my vitamins and such to prevent any future illnesses going forward. I got several colds this year, with the worst one happening in May, which even included a fever. Not fun… and then there’s my skin, I always neglect it, but I’ve started putting on sunscreen to avoid more tans and sunburns. Although I already got a nasty tan around where I wear my watch, eugh.

Oh, and my cut. That was not fun at all, and you read about it here. As an update, the stitches did indeed get removed and my injury has been healing up pretty nicely, though not yet to the point where I can fully use my thumb yet.

Work

This year has been pretty interesting at work. While I’ve been continuing to work on the usual projects and such, I actually got to meet with my coworkers back in July. It was an interesting experience, the first few hours were all about work, we had so many snacks at our disposal. And then we had something to eat, at Chili’s… awful fucking restaurant, the burger I ordered was only half cooked, but the fries were halfway decent. Then we went go-karting, which was quite fun, but I ended up having to leave after that. My teammates are nice, but most of them are way older and they’re not really the kind of people I’d befriend.

Aside from that, it’s been a bit slow for the last couple months, as I haven’t been assigned a whole lot. And I have had my frustrations here and there, but it hasn’t been so bad, overall. Aside from the delayed payments these last two months, what even is up with that…

Social life

Oof, there’s quite a bit to say here. My social life this year has been… uh, how do I put it? Well, not the best. I have tried to connect with new people this year, but I simply wasn’t too successful. Earlier in the year, I did attempt to talk to people from my country, but the first person was too gushy, and the second didn’t seem to like men that much. And keeping my current connections wasn’t that easy either, I ended up spending way more time alone than trying to talk to people, and I even had to end some connections that weren’t helping or simply weren’t working out. Something I hate doing, but it was inevitable.

And then in August, I quit SpaceHey, which was my primary social media up until that point. I had gotten frustrated with the current state of the site, so I made the hard decision to fully delete my account. At that point I realized that it was just like keeping a toxic ex around, there was no reason to keep my account but it was very hard to fully commit to actually doing it. And ever since, I’ve been looking for other online spaces, and I settled on Bluesky for now. It’s been cool so far, but I don’t know if I’ll stay there forever. Still, that’s where my shorter posts will go, and my blog will be for longer form content like this.

In October, I got to hang out with a group of people, all of them from school. A friend of mine had started going to church, and she happened to run into people we haven’t seen in a long time, so she decided to make us all hang out together. It’s been fun going out with them, and it doesn’t seem like they’ve changed much overall. With friend groups, I always have an issue with at least one person in them, so seeing things work out like this is very nice indeed.

This year was also a huge lesson in communication. I suck at it still, and it can be a huge reason a lot of relationships fail. And a lot of problems can indeed be avoided if they’re talked about, instead of just remaining silent. My mom always taught me to keep my mouth shut in those situations, but the more I’ve grown, the more I realized how bad of a move that is. I still have a long way to go, of course, but I’ll try my best.

So yeah, my social life was a bit of a mess this year, but I hope I can make more meaningful connections with people… as long as they’re at least 21, starting next year. I also need to start getting a bit less picky with people, because I really am picky with who gets to be my friend. I always have the mentality that I don’t just want good friends, I want the best ones, but maybe I’m taking it too far. And I also need to be more patient in general with other people.

Collections

If this year was good for anything, it was for collecting. I did have to do away with my shelf, but man did I go crazy with all the things I got. A lot of cars, a lot of phones and even some games. Here’s a sampling of some of the things I got…

And here is the full collection of things:

In conclusion…

This year was not easy, it was a learning experience for sure. I am not going to expect much for the next year, I expect it to be just as chaotic if not more so. And that of course means I’ll have to keep going no matter what life decides to throw at me. But I can officially say I survived 2024… or well, I will be able to, once we actually make it to 2025.

I’d also like to thank everyone who’s been reading my blog and checking out my website in general. Like I always say, I wasn’t sure to start a blog or not, but I’m glad I did, and I will continue to write about all sorts of things. Alright, I’ll stop rambling now.

See you all in the next post.