24 years minus 8 days

(shot by my cousin mike)

what happened this year.

well, more like what didn’t happen?

i graduated. i got married. i moved out. i started working. i own a car! i drive a car daily. insane.

i started drinking coffee again on a very regular basis.

i started waking up at insane hours of 6am, 7am, instead of 6pm, 7pm. (well, usually it was closer to 12-1pm, but still.)

i went to italy.

but mostly, i got really, really, really happy, and really really really comfortable with what makes me happy. that was and still is difficult. i wish i could be like maha, and be incredibly social; or be like tim and be a genius in computers; or be like a whole lot of people i know and talk about deep stuff without feeling like i need google; or be like my parents … in every way. but mostly, i got really, really, really happy.

i think i have life up to end of university summed up pretty well. that was an overwhelmingly huge experience, both university and the feeling of completing it. each day that i see tim (and that’s daily, outside of my sudbury trips), i realize how further away i get from that life and it saddens me in a way i can’t explain – i wish i could say with certainty that if i were to go back, it would be the same. somehow i really doubt it… but a part of me still hopes for it.

married life is freaking awesome. i think people should get married more often; especially if they can have their wedding organized by the people who love them most. the party (maha scoffed at me when i called it that; but it really was an awesome party, and i wouldn’t have it any other way. it just happened to also be an awesome wedding.) was perfect; the honeymoon was even better. (i still intend to finish the write up!) and the life together? no words can describe how happy i am. sorry for being so corny – i guess looking back i didn’t expect things to change, for better or worse, but they did – they became awesomer.

working life is freaking awesome. (do you see the pattern?) i got lucky. i have awesome coworkers, an amazing manager, and i do things that i love on a daily basis. its a weird feeling that even when i am most stressed out, and am tired, underslept, and overloaded i still love it. (not being underslept would help – maybe i should make it a resolution to get 8 hours of sleep each night… not that i ever made resolutions, not that i can remember anyway.) i know more about nickel then i thought i wanted to, and i want to know more. AND i got to fly out of downtown. FUN!

driving the car daily is mostly meh, sometimes horrible, sometimes very fun, but mostly meh. i wouldn’t be so upset if i could take the subway or train to work, but its too much work compared to the car. (superkev, feel free to chastise me for being un-eco-conscious – at least we have a cfl in our pre-hallway entrance!)

moving out was awesome; except i am now pretty darn fixated on interior design. and chairs. did i mention chairs? chairs. mmmm chairs. the thousands of hundreds of awesome chairs from all ages, old and new. i have yet to see a chair in the past 3 months that wouldn’t catch my eye at least for a moment! this might be perverted, but if loving chairs is wrong, i don’t want to be right! other than chairs though, i really do love how function and form translate so easily to interior design. it is like a wonderful combination of photography and computers (no, no, hear me out!). there is logic and function in how a room/space should be layed out – its pointless to have no comfortable sitting places, you need somewhere to eat, and somewhere to store “stuff” that you own. it is nice to have a desk to write or use the computer at, and it is nice to have a comfortable bed. and yet, at the same time, while making those things functional and logically laid out (i.e. if one of you is a grad student who works at 3am, its not a good idea to put the desk next to the bed), it is also possible to make them aesthetically pleasant to look and touch and use. light, size, color, texture! ah, i love it. i just wish i could my hands on another 3000 sq. ft. of space to create all the areas i think would be awesome to have. like a dining room!

thank you, 23, for being so awesome. i can’t wait for 24.