it's a bit funny to have a birthday on "kinda" a holiday. as a kid, i used to always have a sort of "pride?" of having my birthday on the 24th of december as if it made me any more special. but into my teenage years and adulthood, it actually means it is hard for people outside of my immediate family to make time or even remember to wish me a happy birthday. a lot of people hold some special reverance for their own birthday and feel slighted if people forget to acknowledge it to them, but because of everything i've said, i don't. i guess funnily enough, it makes my birthday out to be even less special.
the other fun thing about having a birthday this late in the year is that it lines up pretty well with introspection about the year. in fact, my age, save for this one week before the new year, will always line up with the final two (or three if we're being optimistic) digits of the year. so yea, i've turned 25, firmly in my mid twenties now, tall child as mitski would say.
this year has been a strange year with respect to my "character development". i'm on my wave of not getting too hung up in the past but i definitely did "accomplish" so much last year than this year, but i've always been funny with how i get proud of my accomplishments. graduating and getting published and getting a job is all fine and dandy, but did you know this year i went 2-2 at the rivals 2 regional? did you know i went to the rivals 2 regional? and had a blast and got to have positive social interactions? if there's any sort of accomplishments i do want to highlight and feel proud of, it's definitely the new social connections i've been able to start and the already present ones i've been able to maintain. it's been over a year since i've graduated, full year into working full-time, and so much of my concerns at the start of this was that i would just wither away working my 9-5 but i've been beating that back a lot better than i've expected. it's also the first year where my friends have really started to move out further away too, so it becomes a more difficult effort to actually spend time with them. but at least i have been able to find time to spend with them. it may not nearly be as frequent as when we were still in college, but i'm grateful still for even these handful of times i can experience their company. i used to fret so much about being the person who always reaches out and doesn't have people reach out to them, but i've come to accept that that's just sort of adult life. and for most people, it's just easier to just sort of sit in your default situation, so it does take effort to go out and break up the normalcy. i probably just feel a little more cognisant of shaking it up because my default is kinda lonely: most people have partners or housemates that can help assuage loneliness in their default state, but since i kinda don't quite have that (i have my family which definitely does help in some ways and is better than just being completely alone lol but there's a lot lacking in that as well), i think i just am more uncomfortable sitting in my default state. so yea, i just always feel that urge to not get too complacent by myself, and overall, i've largely avoided being too stuck in my social life.
i've also been decently pleased with my creative output this year! i've put up and put to fruition a lot of poems that sometimes feel like they're being indefinitely worked on, and i've even gotten around to sharing some in small online circles with positive recpetion. i definitely wish i did more, because it's very creatively fulfilling and also my big slay the spire video project which i wanted to get mostly done with recording by the end of the year has still yet to actually be shot, but i'm just hoping now slay the spire 2 just doesn't come out in Q1 2025. still, the script is mostly done, and i had my little foray with video editing, and that i've been happy with. maybe i shouldn't put too much credence to high school english teachers, but i've always been told i'm a good writer, and i've also kinda enjoyed it but never really applied it or did much with it. so writing out this script has been fun but also soooooo difficult . poems are easier to me because i get to use things outside of the words to conjure whatever meaning and effect i'm intending to produce but i feel a lot more frustrating friction when it comes to writing prose. i know i'm a bit rambly when it comes to my writing, so i always feel the need for concision but also some things warrant elaboration so when am i saying too much or too little and gahhhh. but yea it has still been a nice time. editing, on the other hand, has been super fun if not incredibly slow. there's something real neat about picking up something that you really have no basis of knowledge to pull from and so you're just working from square one. i've spent hours figuring out davinci resolve and editing together what amounted to a 15 second montage and i am incredibly proud of those 15 seconds. so yea it's just been fun despite all the difficulties! more frustration may arise when i have to actually put together this entire video (which is looking to be maybe 20 minutes long oh no) but we'll deal with that when we get there
i gueses to wrap this up, what i'm hoping from 2025 is a lot more of what i've started this year: getting my creative projects out there, and getting out there and connecting with people more. i definitely want to try to get out to my local compettive gaming scenes more, and i still gotta try to keep in touch with the friends i have who are local as local communities are just so valuable in my eyes and will become ever important these next few years in which i do fear will become worse in the greater world. community community community. i also will try to see if i can finally move out of my parents' place. even with everything i've said, this year has definitely still been a bit of a slower year, and i feel like that kinda falls in line with the trajectory of my life: one year will be kinda stagnant, the next so much happens, and this next year is shaping up to have a lot of change in my personal life and with my family as my remaining siblings are graduating from college and my dad may end up finding a job again, so i think in a time where lots of things are changing around me, i can find the change i need too.