Another year gone by. That went quickly, huh? Now it's here, the big 2-0, the second decade of my life done with. That's 1/5 of a century. When my grandparents were my age, they already had their first child and had gotten married (imagine! A child at 20! Then again, if you've seen the war at 10, I don't think there's much that can frighten you anymore). And me? I'm living in a shared flat in a (still somewhat) strange city, drinking way too much coffee everyday and trying to get my anxiety in check (might there be a correlation between these two things? Who knows?)
My new train pass arrived a few weeks ago and to be honest, I was shocked. My old one is valid until one day before my birthday, and to be quite frank, I was NOT aware we already were close enough to that date for them to send me the new one. Nineteen has flown by, or so it seems looking back on it now. Time passing has always frightened me.
I think I'm starting twenty at a better place that I started nineteen, or eighteen even (let's be real, that was a shitshow). There were a lot of things I learnt in the last year; one: opportunities will not simply arise for you. They will not fall into your lap. If you want them, you'll have to work for them and create them for yourself, even if that means submitting your writing to be published and being absolutely horrified with it from the day you press "send" on the edited thing, and even if that means talking to people (not too good at this one yet). Two: I can't just wait for my next great story to write itself. I want to write, so I have to start writing and stop talking about wanting to write. Another thing I learnt (I want to say the hard way, but I'm not so sure it actually was that hard) is that in order to overcome my loneliness and my fear of people I actually have to talk to people, and that sometimes, I might even be surprised by how much they actually don't dislike me. I learnt that sometimes, there is a major difference in what you seem like and what you feel like, and that sometimes you can use that to your advantage. I've learnt that keeping the right people around you can make a huge difference in your happiness.
Nineteen was the year that marked my fourth publication in short story collections, so yay for bravery (a thing I noticed: I tend to name my short stories after their protagonists, and it's not a short story of mine if not at least one person dies), and nineteen was the year I sucked it up and went and read my story out loud in front of an audience. Nineteen was also the year that the flat I share with two other people might have just started to become a home.
Nineteen was strange, it took ages and also, didn't I just blink and wasn't I like thirteen about half an hour ago?
But all in all, when all counts are done and all is added up: nineteen was a good year. Here's to making twenty an even better one!
