A Year of New Experiences

Well, clearly I was not so good at updating during my hiatus. Are we surprised? No? Yeah, okay, that's fair!

I'm planning a fairly long post (or possible multiple posts) about the reason for my hiatus: a family trip to Holland and Norway. Spoilers: it was awesome. For today, though, here's a bit of a reflective post.

I turned 24 last Friday. In many ways, 23 wasn't a great year for me. I quit a job for the first time. I quit a job for the second time. I had my first ER visit, closely followed by my second ER visit. I had my first MRI, my second MRI, my first elimination diet, my second elimination diet, and so on. I dropped my first course, had my first car die, and mourned the loss of my first, longest, and biggest hero. At first, when I looked back on my year, it was kind of hard to get all that excited about it. For much of this year, I felt like a failure. I felt like I had accomplished nothing. I felt like I had given up so many things that I should have pursued. Now, almost all of these disappointments were directly linked to being ill, so I recognized on some level that it wasn't necessarily any great weakness of spirit that was my shortcoming, but rather the it was the inevitable manifestation of the unforseen side effects of Mystery Illness. After a point, however, it became hard to console myself with that reminder. I beat myself up for allowing myself to become a victim of circumstance. Even if I couldn't control my illness, certainly I could control my life, so really, what was my excuse? To a certain extent I think this is true, and to a certain extent I think it's untrue, and probably not fair to myself. But that's an entirely different issue. The point is, I was struggling to find any reason to be proud of the past year, and I felt like I had nothing positive to show for it.

But yesterday, I received something in the mail, and with it a much needed change of perspective. An envelope addressed to me showed up along with the weekly ads and junk mail, and inside it was a check. From my client, for whom I am doing some promotional blogging for his novels. 

I had just received my first paycheck as a freelance writer.

This brought on a degree of pride and satisfaction far greater than I had expected, and even more importantly, it got me thinking about all of the other "firsts" of the past year. Not all of them were positives, clearly, as shown above. But a lot of them were, and a lot of them were pretty big, too. They just got lost in the mire of my disappointments, and I focused on all of the wrong things. 

Some of these achievements are big. Some are small. Some are personal, some are professional, and some are silly. All of them, however, are important to me, and I am grateful for them all.

With that in mind, here's another list:

Raven's 15 Firsts of the Past Year

1.) First paycheck as a freelance writer

2.) First paycheck as a freelance web designer

3.) First experience as a video game journalist

4.) First blog (thanks guys!)
5.) First post-college classes (even if had to drop one of them, I learned a lot from both, and am proud of myself for continuing my education.)
6.) First time writing my own functional code (since I'm not willing to count the tinkering I did in high school and college as "functional")

7.) First full year in my own apartment ("own" meaning I pay rent, not that I live alone, in this case)

8.) First time living alone with a significant other

9.) First new car (see how I turned one of my negatives into a positive? Perspective!)

10.) First trip to my family cottage without my parents or any other family members (one of the big signs of adulthood in my family)

11.) First out-of-town nerd convention (going to cons is one thing, but traveling and renting a hotel room for them? A whole different experience!)

12.) First watercolor painting (Paintings of maps count, right?)

13.) First penpal!

14.) First time being a regular at a comic book shop (It's a big deal to me, okay?)

15.) First experience with being self-employed (It's terrifying! And rewarding!)

And as a super special bonus, two weeks ago I met my incredibly sweet cousin for the first time, right before he turned a year old. I love that kid!

There's a Hebrew prayer that is said upon experiencing something for the first time, the Shehecheyanu (שהחינו‎). I'm not particularly spiritual, but this prayer has always resonated with me:

 בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ מֶֽלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם שֶׁהֶחֱיָנוּ וְקִיְּמָנוּ וְהִגִּיעָנוּ לזְּמַן הַזֶּה.

Blessed are you, Eternal God, Sovereign of the universe, who has given us life, sustained us, and helped us to reach this moment. 

Thanks for reading.

P.S. The project that has consumed a very large part of the past year isn't quite wrapped up like I had hoped it would be by now. I won't say anymore just yet (though if we've talked much in the past year you probably know about it) but it definitely introduced a whole slew of new experiences, and I am very excited to tell you about it, I hope soon!