Well, another year is done. 2023 flew by pretty quickly. I often complain that when you were a teenager, the years go by so slowly. But once you hit a certain age, for me it was the age of 21, the years just go by really fast. And there is nothing you can do about it.

2023 was a challenge. It was not fun. It was difficult. And for most of the year, I felt that I was drowning. What the heck happened in 2023?

Job. I lost my job during Q1. Sure, I was not particularly attached to my job but it was something that paid the bills you know. I found myself hateful. Not because of what I lost, but because of how management handled it. The lies. The lack of transparency. The lack of empathy. Let’s just say, it was bad. I was unemployed for about 7 months. The job market was awful. There were a lot of ghost job posts out there. I didn’t count how many positions I applied for, but for a lot of them, I didn’t even get that general rejection email. Out of all that, I only got three interviews. One of them resulted in me getting a new job by November.

Personal and Mental Health. Well, with being unemployed came depression and anxiety. The thought of when I would be homeless came to mind. It was not a good thought to be stewing upon. I was struggling with having the motivation to do anything. I isolated myself. Not because I didn’t want to be social but because I’d rather be in bed and not talk to anyone. For the most part, that was what I did. l was fine at the beginning of the unemployment mind you. But as the months passed, I just shut down and shut people out. And that was not good. Not just for me but for the people around me. I worried them and that was not good. I started bouncing back around October and from then I’ve been kind of establishing the routine that I lost. So far, I’ve been doing okay. Sure I still have bad days but not often. So I will take that.

Reading. I devoured some good books. Heaven Official’s Blessing is at the forefront for sure. This series did put me in a good mood. It was a nice escape from my brain. Craig & Fred was a memoir that I enjoyed a lot. I found gems in the manga/manhwa/manhua format – You Get Me Going, How My Daddies Became Mates, Given. There’s a lot more of course but these three became my favorites off the bat. In total, I read 177 items for 2023 – 56% of which were manhwa, 25% being novels. Out of the items I read, 67% were webtoons, 17% were in physical format, and 16% were eBooks. Sure my consumed genre could use a bit of diversification but hey, the genre that I mostly read was worth it.

Goals for 2024. I have some resolutions of course. The regular “lose XX lbs”, “read XX physical books”, “save $XX”. I did break these yearly goals into mini-goals so that I can at least keep track of them more efficiently and so it’s not so daunting to do them. All I know is that I’m ready to get my life on track this year. I was a mess last year, I need some kind of control over my life.