dorchadas | New Year's Retrospective 2019

Happy New Year! I drank too much last night and I haven't felt 100% today, but it was nice and relaxing.

thosesocks invited me and some other people over for a quiet day listening to folk music and eating cheese. I made zenzai, traditional Japanese red bean New Year's soup, and

thosesocks made tea for us all, and now I'm at home with a wood-wick candle burning and watching Reverse Angle's take on the 1998 Godzilla.

It's been a good year. On Facebook, I wrote:

I went into 2019, teeth barred and a knife behind my back, ready to immediately start stabbing the moment it looked like anything was threatening.

Three, maybe four months in, I put the knife down and kept walking, and I haven't felt the lack.

People repeatedly tell me how different I am. How I seem like an almost completely different person than I used to. They tell me that I'm more social than they could have imagined even for themselves, and ask me how I have the energy to do it. My *sister* told me that she was jealous of my social life and asked me for my secret, and let me tell you, that was the day that Hell froze over.

At my last party, people kept asking me "How do you know all these people!?"

The story of the last decade was, I suppose, of being a plant in a glass bottle. I had plenty of light and water, but when I hit the edge of the bottle I just stopped growing and I figured that was the limit of the world. When in 2018 the glass shattered, I thought that it was a world-ending disaster...but it actually let me grow in ways I hadn't thought were previously possible.

In 2019 I made a bunch of new friends. I started dating again. I put down the video games that have defined my life for thirty years because I *don't have time to play* because I'm too busy seeing people, going to theatre shows, watching movies at friends' houses, and going to museums. I am, in other words, a new man.

So, bring on the roaring 2020s. Give me neon noir, synthwave jazz, electric-blue cocktails in dingy speakeasies, black trenchcoats with collars turned up against climate-change-induced polar vortices, and, hopefully, a story I can start with "And then she walked in." I am more than ready

So there's a good summary of my year! It was a great year overall.

The song that defined my 2018 was "Dynasty," by Miia:

Watch on YouTube

The scar I can't reverse
When the more it heals the worse it hurts
Gave you every piece of me, no wonder it's missing
Don't know how to be so close to someone so distant

And all I gave you is gone
Tumbled like it was stone
Thought we built a dynasty that heaven couldn't shake
Thought we built a dynasty like nothing ever made
Thought we built a dynasty forever couldn't break
Up

But the song that defined 2019 was "Gorgeous" by Illenium:

Watch on YouTube

Sometimes I gotta pinch myself
Oh, gorgeous
Hello today
Well let me introduce myself
Oh, gorgeous

All those days that passed me by
I can’t believe I’m still alive
They say you need the dark to shine
It’s like I can see for the first time
And it’s gorgeous

It was a good year.

Here's my answers for the traditional New Year's forty questions meme:

1. What did you do in 2019 that you’d never done before?
Been very social, to the point that my sister is jealous of my social life. Gone on a date--I've been in plenty of relationships, but before this year I've never gone on a date with someone for the purpose of measuring our compatibility. Been given an aliyah (though someone else did the chanting). Bought a condo.

Quite a few things.

2. Did you keep your New Years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don't do New Year's resolutions, so I will neither keep them nor make more.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Not anyone who's close to me, really.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Thankfully, no.

5. What countries did you visit?
None. I didn't travel that much.

6. What would you like to have in 2020 that you lacked in 2019?
A job that's a little less monotonous, and someone to share my year with.

7. What date from 2019 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
My birthday, when I signed the papers for my new home.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Definitely buying a home.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Honestly, I can't really think of anything that qualifies. It's been a good year.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Nothing stronger than a cold.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
A condo.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
I've written about them repeatedly this year, so I won't do so again here. But a lot of my close friends. They're fantastic.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
No one I know personally, but the country as a whole hasn't been great.

14. Where did most of your money go?
A condo. It is not a cheap purchase.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
The cons I went to.

16. What song will always remind you of 2019?
"Gorgeous" by Illenium.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Much, much happier.
ii. thinner or fatter? The same weight.
iii. richer or poorer? Poorer in terms of money, but I have a home now, so if that counts, richer.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Gone to more events in the earlier part of the year. I went to a ton of them in the later part, to the point of sometimes only having one night a week where I wasn't out at some theatre show, friend's house, religious celebration, or other event. I've really lost the inhibitions that prevented me from going to places where I didn't know anyone, but only halfway through the year.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Played video games--and at the end of the year, I did.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
I went to a friend's house, drank apple cider, and we hung out. It was nice.

21. Is there a particularly memorable meal you had?
The dinner I made for Rosh Hashanah is definitely one of them. So is the time I made chicken teriyaki. The Ugly Fruits and Vegetables dinner at Elizabeth too, and the Passover Seder.

Food is important to me.

22. Did you fall in love in 2019?
No.

23. How many one-night stands?
Technically, none.

24. What was your favorite TV program?
I didn't really watch a lot of TV! Nothing stands out.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Yeah, but I don't talk to them anymore, so it doesn't matter.

26. What was the best book you read?
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Definitely Heilung. Going to see them in three weeks.

28. What did you want and get?
A home that I can call my own, because it is my own.

29. What did you want and not get?
A new relationship.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
Knives Out, which I saw pretty late in the year but thought was fantastic.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 37, and as I said above, I bought a home.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Seeing a few obituaries in the paper.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2019?
Extra from Blade Runner, which makes extra sense because that was this year, so.

34. What kept you sane?
I kept myself sane. I finally came to a point where I can do that.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I don't. I don't pay enough attention to pop culture to.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
Just like last year, it's still immigration

"You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt"
-Exodus 22:20.

37. Who did you miss?
No one. The people I've cut out of my life didn't deserve a spot there in the first place.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
I'm not sure I can pick. I've met several people who I've become very close friends with, and ranking friends is awful.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2018.
If people want to spend time with you, they will. If they like you, they'll let you know. Mixed messages mean no. Make allowances for people's mental health, but generally, don't chase after anyone.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
I already did this above, so those.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

grayswandir

Happy New Year!

The story of the last decade was, I suppose, of being a plant in a glass bottle. I had plenty of light and water, but when I hit the edge of the bottle I just stopped growing and I figured that was the limit of the world. When in 2018 the glass shattered, I thought that it was a world-ending disaster...but it actually let me grow in ways I hadn't thought were previously possible.

I like this metaphor, and I'm glad 2019 went so well for you. (I think it was less than a year ago that I friended you on DW, but even at that time, you were still posting mostly about games, and definitely not about a zillion social events, so even from my perspective it seems like a pretty dramatic difference.)

dorchadas

Happy New Year!

It's weird to me, after so many games for so long, the last full game I finished was back in September. Even today, when I had almost the entire day free to myself...I've been reading all day.

It's time for my once-a-year playthrough of a Quest for Glory game and I'm having to convince myself to do it, even though it's my favorite of the series. It's so odd to me.