2021

 Well, if there was ever a good year to decide not to plan and not to have hard and fast resolutions, it was definitely 2020. I wrote nothing, read an ordinary amount (the Bridgerton marathon balancing out nicely with the A Suitable Boy sprint) and bought a medium number of things. I planned nothing, and yet it was one of the more anxious years I've lived. But then, it was an anxious year for the world. 

Hopefully, 2021 will be better. Hopefully, the good (and Terrible) things I found last year will continue, hopefully a new house and new beginning will give me a new measure of peace and joy and contentment. Maybe I will finally learn the guitar and Urdu and yoga. Maybe I'll find out that I'm okay not learning anything and just floating in my current self for a while. Maybe I'll take a year off the introspection and just nap a lot. We'll find out. 

~Sam 

2020

Hey blog. It's been a while.

I've been bad, even by my steadily deteriorating standards over the last few years. Not a post all year, in a year where I had resolved to write more and to reinstate the favourites' lists, and to top it all off, not even a New Year introspection post? Shame on me.

To briefly recap the last year, I failed miserably at both writing more (or at all, except a few stray emo notes here and there) and at keeping track of happy things - as a consequence of which, I have no memory whatsoever of how I felt or what I experienced in 2019.

I was better at running / working out, though, particularly in large stretches where I automatically felt the urge to go up to the gym or down to the court / pool when I woke up in the morning. I know people usually have inch / kilo related fitness goals, but honestly? That's mine. Working out without needing to talk myself into it.

I also travelled and made active attempts to socialise with people, so I basically did well at everything except The Most Important Resolution, Namely, Writing. Great priorities as always, Sam.

For the coming year - well, what do I want in the coming year?

I still want to write more, but perhaps without putting a number on it this time. Timesheets at work are bad enough, perhaps I can live without numerical targets in my personal life.

I want to read more, as always.

I want to shop less, do a repeat of no-clothes-2018 (no buying clothes, you pervert) and add to it by refraining from buying anything superfluous. This will be hard, but let's see how it goes.

I also want to, for a change, plan...less. The mental and physical health consequences of stress and being extra-Type-A was something that characterized a lot of the latter half of 2019 for me, and it's made me want to try a life where I don't anally try to sort everything into clear, categorized boxes. I considered conducting a survey of popular stress-relieving activities, downloading the right meditation apps and creating a timetable of relaxing activities for myself - and then I looked at myself and realized, maybe we should just...roll back and try to live a little. The next five steps don't always have to be planned and back-up-planned, right? (Right?!)

And, in the spirit of planning less, that's it. That's what I want to do in 2020. Read, write, not buy shit I don't need, and breathe. Do I not also want to...Learn the guitar? Lose weight? Learn a new language? Fall in love? Quit my job?

We'll see. No pressure.

Love,
~Sam 

2019

It has been, once again, a year. Depending on who I'm talking to, how much work I have, how drunk I am and what time of the month it is, my feelings about it vary from, "holy hell, I've come far and this has been pretty great, all things considered" to, "what am I doing with my life, why am I here and will I ever be happy?"

So basically, same as always.

When I'm emo, I always forget how emo I've always been - my most immediate crisis always feels like the most important one I have ever experienced, and so I am always taken aback by the intensity of emotion when I stumble across old diaries and notebooks and word documents, as I recently did. And boy, has my internal airbrush been on fire this year. Pages and pages have been filled with me questioning every decision, wondering when I'll just pick a team (literally and figuratively), when I'll shut up and stop being such an emo fuck, when I'll learn to be content and happy, conveniently forgetting that I've been an emo dissatisfied fuck since at least 2004, long, long before any of my current life crises had ever raised their heads.

Given how much of the year I've spent combatting struggles inside my head, I seriously considered making 2019 the year in which I give up and just embrace the emo, wallow in them feels and stop even attempting to rediscover the light happy chirpy bunny I'm convinced I once used to be. I considered going emo max, but the truth is, I think we all know that I've been there, done that, and written a book on it. So no more embracing the emo for me, at least about Big Life Decisions.

Instead, I want to make 2019 about things that I know make me happy, things I know I love, even if it's something I struggle to remind myself of in the daily grind of life. And because we all know what a basic bitch I am, say hello to the most cliched resolutions of all time:

Primary Resolutions:

1. Run: I love running when I'm running; hate it when I'm snuggled up warmly in bed. The aim for 2019 is to remember the feeling I have when I'm running, and try to feel it as often as possible. For once, I want to prioritise fitness over dessert, and see what it feels like to have the body you want. This is not something I'm very good at consistently wanting, though (cake, guys, cake), which is why the resolution isn't to get hot - just to run, to feel the blood pumping through my body, to feel the rush of endorphins to my brain and to use my body for something other than getting in and out of cabs and office chairs. 
2. Write (Part 1): There is a story that's been festering in my mind since 2005-6, that's gone through enough iterations to be unrecognizable from its original self (thankfully, since I've grown up considerably since then), but that it's time to actually put down on paper. Something I've always meant to attempt is NaNoWriMo, a challenge where you're supposed to write 50,000 words in a month. That seems near-impossible as my life is right now, though I still hope to one day do it. In 2019, however, I want to write those 50,000 words over the course of the year. That comes to about 1,000 words every weekend, which, while ambitious, is something I should've started doing a long, long time ago. 
3. Connect: Something that's consistently characterized my life in this city is loneliness. My closest friends and family are far away from me, and the friends around me are as isolated and absorbed in their jobs and lives as I am in mine. Making new friends has never been a forte of mine; I don't remember ever taking less than three years to truly let a person in to become a friend, and not just someone to hang out with. That kind of reticence is not something I think I can afford in adult life. I've retreated more into myself over the past year than I have at any point in the past decade, and it's time to travel outwards again. So the plan for next year, in keeping with Mission Bring Back Happy Chirpy Bunny Sam, is to connect, to make plans, meet people, and initiate conversations, with old friends and with new. Less time inside my head, in the past and the future and all the alternate universes that could have been; more time in the life I'm living, with the people I'm living it with. 

Bonus Resolutions:

1. Write (Part 2): One of my resolutions this year was to reinstate the monthly favourites lists. While I successfully did that privately, favourites scribbled regularly in my Bombay notebook, for the next year, I want to consider bringing them back to the blog - either that, or to write one post a month anyway. In addition to thousand words of fiction I want to write every weekend, this seems very ambitious, but we live and we try, I suppose. 
2. Travel: One of my favourite parts of this year, one of the few golden days that stand out regardless of who I'm talking to, how much work I have, how drunk I am and what time of the month it is, is the weekend I spent in Goa. It's one of the most impromptu things I've ever done, booking tickets and hotels mere hours before departure, having absolutely no itinerary in mind, no elaborate plans and accompanying frustration. Just two girls with their backpacks, staring at the ocean and taking the most fabulous pictures of all time, and that's a feeling I want to recreate this year - a vacation that feels like a vacation.

My resolutions in 2018 - to not buy clothes, reinstate the favourites lists, and not drink more than once a month - are things that seemed necessary at the time, things that I succeeded in doing, by and large, and things that led to a better year. My resolutions for 2019 are bigger, harder (no puns intended) - things that have seemed necessary all my life, but that have been pushed away for one reason or another (procrastination, laziness and inertia come to mind), things that could lead to a better life.

I hope I stick to them.

Happy new year, guys.
~Sam 

2015: Note to Self

I made a bunch of resolutions last year. I lived up to most of them for about half the year, give or take a bit, and then failed miserably when everything fell apart at the end. But one of my resolutions last year was to try to be more optimistic, and in that spirit, here are some resolutions for next year! Though they're more like...notes to myself. Whatever, here goes:

1. Emotional stability: Keep your chill. Keep your chill. Keep your chill. With regard to work, relationships, life, everything. This year is probably gonna be hella cray. Keep your chill.
2. Health: Less ordering junk food. More sleeping (preferably at night). More running. You like running. You like early mornings. Do the math and put them together and get off your lazy bum and make yourself happier.
3. Try more new things. You did that a bit this year; it didn't always work out. Keep trying. 
4. Read at least fifty books. Stop feeling sad that you've gone from a book a day to hopefully fifty this year; you're not twelve anymore, and life is different.
5. Watch at least twenty of the movies on your laptop. And at least two of the many many TV shows you've been meaning to.
6. Minimize procrastination. I don't know how. Do it.
7. Write.
8. Learn to save. Save money to spend on things you actually like. Regain that self-control everyone used to praise.
9. Try to put yourself out there.
10. Stop excelling at convincing people you're fine when you're not and then being mad at them for falling for it and treating you like you're fine instead of showering you with love and attention.
11. Take your own advice. 
12. Be okay with failing. Even at all of these. Treat yo self!
13. Grow as a human being. A lot happened this year. You didn't always (mostly) handle it well. Next year, try for more empathy. Less neediness. More awareness that bad things will happen and you need to get better at handling them. "I can't handle this shit, I did nothing to deserve this" will get you nowhere. 
14. Try to drop your phone less. And have a better reaction than squealing and covering your mouth with your hands every time it happens. 
15. Most of all, remember how hopeful and optimistic about everything you are right now, and treasure this feeling, and keep it alive. 

Iloveyouall, thank you for being a part of my life, take care of yourselves. I'll go work now. :D

Smiles and hugs,

~Sam 

Resolute!

Some of my resolutions based on some of the things I've thought this year.


"I'm fat and ugly and no one will ever love me."
#1. Less insecurity.

"I'm fine."
#2. Less lying. Also, like, more actually being fine.

"*whines*"
#3. Less whining. More "disgusting cheerfulness."

"There are a million good writers in this world. Who the hell am I?"
#4. More confidence.

"The world sucks."
#5. More hope.

"Oh, I should blog about that...but ugh."
#6. Less ugh. NO ugh. More writing.

"But..."
#7. Less negativity.

"Yes, absolutely, I have no problems whatsoever!"
#8. More honesty.

"You'e an idiot."
#9. More tactful honesty.

"I can't."
#10. More doing.


Happy New Year, folks! Once again, I hope it's a wonderful one and no one wishes they were dead. ^_^

Much love.
~Sam