As you might have noticed, I haven’t been writing in almost three months.
Still, it was a year of lots of personal writing for me, being more explicit online about my life than I have ever been before.
Some might say I have overshared a couple of times, but so far, no jail time needs to be served for that reason, so I suppose it could’ve been worse.
It has been quite a peculiar year.
I am writing this from my little apartment in a tower in East London, surrounded by the silence of an urban night.
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I think I have used my writing this year mainly as a way to connect with people. Sometimes, people used it to connect with me, which I liked very much, but it also maybe spooked me a few times.
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I have probably partied this year more than in many years, and I feel a little tired of it. I plan to spend my Christmas and New Year’s Eve time on recovery – I will just watch movies with my sister. We did it last Christmas, and it was blissful. I also feel like it was only yesterday.
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I haven’t changed my job this year; I’m still doing what I did at the end of last year. As with every job, there are certain challenges to it, but I like the disease area I am working on very much.
Probably the biggest challenge for me personally was sometimes extensive travelling for work. A lot of people think it’s a big perk of my job and I am sure it might be that for you – if you firstly have time to see anything during your business travels (I normally don’t) and also generally feel the need to travel a lot (I don’t). I like having a regular schedule, and when I travel, I like to do whatever I want and be in control of my time.
If you follow me on social media, you know that my luggage was lost thrice in September-October 2023. Yes, three times.
Some people have told me I must be cursed. I don’t believe in curses, but I do believe that there must be something about my mindset that I still need to change in order to see more positive changes in my reality and have fewer curve balls.
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And that has been my focus this year.
I have worked on myself oh so bloody much.
I had therapy sessions almost every week where I spoke about my emotions, worked on my unhealthy relationship patterns, on my self-worth and its sources, on who I really am. On my identity in my own eyes, on who I see myself as, even without boyfriends, money, prestige, success, or anything I have pursued my entire life to feel like I meant something.
I focused on my health and relationships, building friendships and, honestly, also on something that I have neglected for many years while trying to be professionally successful and also a good partner in a conservative sense. It is basically having fun and maybe sometimes being a bit loose, I guess?
Yes, I did some silly things because of that, but again, I have had no jail time so far.
I also tried dating different people than I normally would and recognised red flags early.
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If you clicked on this, I am pretty sure you wanted to hear about my dating life. I wouldn’t mind sharing my thoughts on it in more detail if I didn’t think there was a high likelihood that basically every person I deem worth mentioning in this Mount Rushmore of my 2023 dating history might stalk me a little bit at some point and read this. Well, hello if you are doing this. Nothing too horrible happened to me this year, so please know I’m doing well. Thank you, and I’m sure that’s what you wish upon me, even if we are basically strangers at this point.
I started this year with a bit of a confused state of mind, rejected by a friend I cared about – it cost me a bit of pain, but now, when I think of this, it takes me back to what I wrote about love in February. Where does affection disappear? And sometimes, so quickly. I still remember well the person I was when I felt sad over all of this, and I grieve this person, pity this person, and feel no connection with her. One day, I won’t even remember her, but now I still do, and I am bizarrely amazed at my state of mind from a few months back. Where did she go?
I have then dated probably all the AI engineers in London. What a rollercoaster of emotions, thrills, and entertainment.
I just want to say that I am sure there are plenty of AI engineers in London who I would potentially find compatible with me, but I am still unable to find one.
I think around summer, I mainly just wanted to have fun, and fun did I have. I wanted to thank everyone involved.
Around September, I met someone I liked, who quickly got invested and did some things that possibly scared me a little. Around that time I also had an impossible amount of work, I moved house, was constantly ill and exhausted. Also, traveled for work a lot.
The summer was really over for me at that point. I still wonder if he is ok, as he told me he wouldn’t be. Despite everything, I hope he will find peace.
Shortly after that, I finally met someone I had admired for months from a distance in person, and it might have been one of the craziest, most fun dates I have ever had, and actually, the date was repeated recently. This time, it was even more insane and intense.
Again, I am grateful to all the mentioned MVPs; I am sure you did your best, just as I am trying to do. One party has probably hurt the other one at some point, at least slightly, but I guess we are all pretending like professionals that we are that it has not been the case.
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A few days ago, I had my birthday party for the first time in ages. It is not easy to organise it when your birthday is on Christmas Eve, plus, of course, the pandemic happened. I had a lovely time, but I must admit, while I was celebrating, I also felt very much like a different person than I used to be.
I feel very little connection with my past, and I sometimes grieve that. At the same time, I am not very nostalgic by nature. I guess I need to accept it and also enjoy the fact that there are some things about my tendencies and my character that, in my opinion, have improved.
At the end of this year, I don’t really have regrets; I may only have some worries. Also, I am really not someone to be toxicly positive, but I am so grateful for being alive, relatively healthy and strong. I only wish it could be a bit longer, and I wish I had a bit more time to really feel like I understand myself, where I now start and where I end.
I become even stronger every day because I also started lifting weights, and I couldn’t be more grateful for that.
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I wish my brother could see it.
