Howdy and sorry for the extremely long lag times in posts. It's what happens when life gets the better of you. Also when you spend three and a half months pondering your life goals, questioning the only remaining childhood dream you have kept into your thirties.
Last year I tried something really hard. I pushed myself to submit my writing to contests, magazines, whatever I could find. If I could submitted as pieces as the number of the month, I was alright.
After 6 months of this, 20 rejections and one (unpaid) publication, I was engulfed in self-doubt and started to reconsider my ambition. I took a break for GISHWHES and didn't go back to the submission madness in 2015. I did write a 55,000 word manuscript for NaNoWriMo, which I always try very hard at, and it helped me refocus.
Maybe my writing needs some help and focus and polish, and maybe I can focus on those things in 2016 instead of churning out submissions.
That said, early on the morning of December 23rd, while I was half-conscious next to my toddler and husband, my phone alerted me to an email declaring that I had actually won one of the contests I had submitted to back in May. I thought, "Hey, that's cool. I bet I tied for third or something and won $5."
As it turns out, my piece (one of 4 submitted to this contest) won first prize and a lot more than $5.
Read it here.
My brother got engaged to my best friend from college in July, so after GISHWHES I threw myself into making my bridesmaid's dress and all the flowers (origami, man!) and getting things organized. We were super fortunate in that the GoFundMe my (at that time soon-to-be) sister-in-law set up actually raised just enough money for me to fly in for the December wedding.
So I started trying to prepare myself to leave my little toddler all alone with her super affectionate and awesome Japanese grandparents (husband spent the whole time working) as well as getting any last minute things finished.
In the 7.5 years I have been living in Japan and returning home periodically, I have never been so torn about leaving nor so eager to return, and not because I don't love my husband or enjoy living here. Having kids changes you, or at least it did me. Now when we're separated, part of me is missing and not like my husband, who was fully functional when I met him. Nope.
I had to leave behind someone I had been talking to since before she had ears behind for one week, and there were challenges. In Texas, I resented being near small children because it was kind of like an emotional donkey-kick to the uterus. Maybe that's why some people hate kids. Surely some people legitimately hate the little crap-factories, but some probably secretly love them but there's pain in the love and more than they want to deal with.
Meanwhile, I had lots of great encounters with amazing people I missed terribly. I got to reconnect with a former roommate by staying up all night in a Minecraft and goat-simulator marathon. That was awesome. I had many fantastic meals with friends I had not seen since my own wedding.
And then there's the wedding, which was awesome and amazing and wonderful. Easily this was probably the most joyous wedding I have ever witnessed.
In the few weeks since I returned, I've dealt with Christmas decorating and un-decorating, followed by Japanese new-year's decorating, which is almost at an end, too. Then all of the other amazing things!
I also read most of Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson. I thoroughly recommend this author and book to anyone who is suffering from depression among other issues and wants to do something other than hate themselves/life for it. Be furiously happy.
Also, do GISHWHES.
Those I believe are a few of the keys to happiness.
So I have decided to drop some of the precise polished pretension in this blog and let it be a blog about me and my life and the weird things I see in the weird little country I have decided to live in and am lucky enough to still be a part of.
So that's what it's going to be. Also, updated more regularly.
Yay 2016!
Happy New Year!
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