A new year

2012 is almost here. I write this on my front steps, feeling the warmth of the sun as it begins to set, and I reflect on 2011. I had so many wonderful experiences. I've traveled near and far, from camping by the California coast to wandering through the streets of China.

June 2011

I competed in my first cooking competition (I didn't win, but it was such a fun adventure) and watched one of my best friends get married.

May 2011

I went to countless concerts, singing and grooving, feeling the beat deep down in my heart.

November 2011

I hiked, biked, ran, and swam. I SUPed, climbed, camped and danced.

December 2011

It was a wonderful year, but I was knocked down in the middle of it. I was surprised at how much it crumbled my resolve and made me question what I wanted in life. I felt very alone and realized how much this loneliness made me unhappy. I realized how much I relied on certain people to make me feel fulfilled.

Over the past few months, I have been rebuilding and rediscovering myself. I have been learning how to feel fulfilled on my own. While I know that sharing experiences with someone special can be wonderful, at the same time, in the end, it's just you. I remembering when Steve Jobs died, the news would play over one of his interviews, and one statement caught my attention.

"You're born alone, you're gonna die alone... what is it exactly... that you have to lose?"

Then, a few days later, I was watching an old episode of Mad Men, and a similar quote from Don Draper caught my ear.

"You're born alone and you die alone... I'm living like there's no tomorrow."

These quotes all struck me as the truth. Being alone is a fact, there is nothing you can do about it. But how you fill those moments when you are alone is what matters. My goal for 2012 is to find peace in my time alone. To enjoy it as solitude rather than loneliness. And that's not to say I'm going to hole myself up in my house and become a loner. But for those moments that I do find myself alone, whether it's at a dinner or while I'm traveling, or when I go to bed at night, I'm going to cherish those moments as much as I cherish the ones when I am with someone.

I'll have this guy to watch my back too, to remind me of my strength and beauty.

inked 12.23.11

And now it's on to 2012. I'm feeling lighter already. Although it could be from losing a good foot of hair!

12.30.11

Goodbye 2011 (and the long hair that went with it)! Here's to an amazing 2012! Cheers!

Thankful

November is coming to a close, which also means that soon this year will be over. It's been a rather emotional year for me, one where I have felt the happiness of delving into new experiences to sadness after losing a friendship. It was during that time that I felt a bit lost and started questioning about where my life was going. I knew that I was doing so much and yet I was feeling unfulfilled.

I started this blog to help remind me of all the wonderful experiences I was having. All the opportunities that I am so lucky to be able to have. During the few months that I have been writing, I've rediscovered photography and how much pictures capture feelings that for me are often hard to express. I'm still learning.

When November began, I wanted to highlight all the things in life for which I was thankful. I started to bold those words in my posts that brought me happiness. 

It was hard not to bold everything! Sometimes it was as simple as a smile to as odd as a vacuum. It was small like a tomato to big like nature. It is almost anything and everything.

There is so much in this life to be thankful for and it is so easy to take it for granted. I look at my list of words and it really could go on and on and on. But I've limited myself to a list within 8 letters this month. 

As of yesterday, I have almost filled all the letters. I think if I had written a post everyday, I could've filled them all. I filled the last of it in about 1 minute of free writing. 

Sometimes, I would look at my growing list and close my eyes in peace. I wish I could say that it's every day I feel that, but I'd be lying if I said I did. Life is difficult. It's big and it can be lonely. It can be tiring. It can be painful. It fills you with emotions that can be hard to manage. But life gives back so many rewards for every challenge it throws at you. 

Those rewards are what I cherish. The words that represent just a few of those rewards are now on eight letters that are hanging in my dining room. It is the room I pass through every day. Those letters will be one of the first things I see when I come home. When I am feeling unfulfilled, I just have to look at these letters and see how fulfilling my life is. 

Life is good. My life is good. And for this I am thankful. Everyday and forever. 

Being Thankful

November. Thanksgiving. Why wait until November 24 to give thanks? I started thinking of the many things that I'm thankful for a few nights ago while I was lying in bed. It seems like the Shutter Sisters were on the same wavelength. And I realized my blog is about all that I'm thankful for. All the things that Ai loves. That I love. I am thankful for all the memories I have and all the ones that will come.

Reminiscing

I've always loved taking photographs and chronicling all the events going on in life. I have a plethora of scrapbooks from my college years and after. With the digital age, my photos have started to just become boxes on a screen. As I get older and busier, with more responsibilities and commitments, I have a harder time remembering my memories!

Blogs seem to be a nice way to combine my love of photography and journaling. I've always written in journals too. I still have my journals from when I was a wee little one. It's quite funny to read the old entries.

Anyhow, today I'm starting this blog. Who knows how long I'll stick with it and who's ever going to read it. But it helps me make room in my brain for more memories, if that makes any sense. You know that scene from Harry Potter where Dumbledorf extracts his memories into that pensieve? This blog is my pensieve.



So on this lovely labor day weekend I'm stuck in town working. But it's slow, so what better time to flip through old photos and recount travels from the past? The way past...we're going back to 1998, when I backpacked through Europe. I've blown off the dust from my journal and scrapbook and want to restore those memories here. It will probably take a while to transfer some of the photos, but let's see what I can bring to the new world.

The red scarf of Pamplona peeping out