2019 Has Come And Gone, I’m Still Holding On
These moments of stasis only leave me dwelling in the past
March is over. And yet I’m still clinging to 2019 even as it recedes with each passing moment. The first couple months of a year: usually up until some point after my birthday; seem to always be like this for me. Grasping desperately for the year in retreat; lingering in reflection; procrastinated and put off in the flurry of family and festivities and friends that delay the inevitable sigh of relief that’s supposed to be waiting at the year’s conclusion.
The year seemed a slow crescendo that peaked by the time November and December rolled around. And it was only until the moment I crested that summit and caught sight of the swath beyond, I realized I was already half-tumbling down the cliff edge on the other side.
November marked the end of my first season of Historical European Martial Arts (which I’ve only written about tangentially here); capstone-d by my worst performance in competition ever: a dazzling array of losses and even the occasional mercy-kill.
I found myself dissatisfied.
But it wasn’t the outcome that disconcerted me, competition and loss have always been familiar. Instead, a disconnectedness permeated the entire day, only amplified after one exchange ended in the injury of someone who I greatly respected (thankfully only a bloody nose at the end of a match). There was no bad blood, and yet I felt disgusted. The blurry un-focus; the smothering haze that clung to every movement; hanging over every moment; as if going through the motions left my mind somewhere distant; only intensified. A trace of tongue-tinted-bitterness was still there, and it couldn’t be washed out.
In the ensuing weeks, I quit my first job. My first real job.
At one point in time, I’d shared the burden of work with three of my closest friends, their collective friendship longer than my life in years. But now there were only two of us; soon to be one; each scattered to the wind. To give up that safety net, that safe space for the hope that something new could be better, was terrifying. To willingly thrust myself into the unknown: I couldn’t know what to expect, and wouldn’t even begin to grasp until the new year rolled around.
When one of my closest cousins returned from abroad after eighteen months, we scrapped together a last minute trip to Colombia with the weeks left between leaving work and my coming home for Christmas. Maybe I was hoping the busyness could keep the uncertainty at bay; pouring over maps and itineraries and blogs and plane tickets and my pathetic cobbling of grade school-learned Spanish.
Traveling together was a blessing in learning all the things that I did: about myself; about dealing with challenges and unfamiliarity; about understanding people and my relationships to them. But in looking to escape away, I came back with more questions than I expected. Disconcertion about life at home, in a country that seemed more and more at odds with what I valued about life, and that uncertainty, that dissatisfaction, looming in the distance; bitterness like bile building up in the back of my throat, as if I had left something unaddressed, undone.
By the time New Years finally rolled around, I was exhausted. Too exhausted to think, too exhausted to breathe, too exhausted to even realize that the year was significant. With the waning ring of 2019, there were a good number of spaces inhabited; feats accomplished; words unsaid; things undone; I’d yet to pay heed to.
So with this long and melodramatic opening, I’ll admit that its March, and I’m writing about all the shit I probably should’ve written about in 2019 but didn’t take the time to. Maybe I’m hoping deep down inside that this will help me move on with life. Because last year it felt sorta nice, and it would be cool to feel nice every once in a while.
But maybe I’m also doing this knowing this sense of tumbling isn’t going to stop anytime soon. I don’t know where this uncertainty, this feeling of aimlessness, stems from. But for now, this is all I know how to do. So I’ll have to make do with what I’ve got.
So lets rewind, and see how the spaces inhabited; the places visited; got me here.
Over this week (March 30th) at around noon each day, I’ll be releasing small pieces of 2019 that I’ve been holding on to. I’ll link them here as the list grows, but for now, here are some small hints about what I’ll be letting go.
I’ve Lowkey Wanted To Be Tom Cruise For 20-Odd-Years Of My Life
After the fiasco that was my inability to settle in and enjoy Dishonored 2, I made a promise to relax: to let myself enjoy the next and final(?) game in the series.
And I sorta failed.
If The Third Time’s Not The Charm, What Is?
For as long as I can remember, my father always talked about this home as one of his greatest inspirations as an architect. Hidden away in an autumnal forest, I was finally able to experience the place for myself.
On: Fallingwater
images of shifting seasons flashing before my eyes
My totally serious, well-trodden guide to navigating the world of choosing to never leave your room again, from the perspective of a hipster introvert.
When Social Distance Deigns You Play Video Games: An Inferior Medium Only Good For Wasting Time
Steam Remote Play, Crawl, Kind Words; a Social Distancing Survival Guide
I quit my job and began the end of 2019 with a two-week-long trek across Northern Colombia, with the latter week inhabiting this beautiful city of Eternal Spring.
On: Medellin
the hills are alive with the thrumming glimmer of hope
There’s a reason the last games I wrote about in 2019 were ones I actually finished playing back in March of last year, when I completed Firewatch and Return of the Obra Dinn. And I owe 100% of that to Sekiro, for giving me a deadline to finish playing these by. (Sekiro released end of March 2019)
When The Only Way To Grow Is To Simply Ask More Of Yourself
Sekiro, Historical European Martial Arts, and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
So that’s it! A week of entries completed.
Thanks for reading!
I finally had a chance to flesh out some of these semi-finished thoughts if only for a little bit, and it was nice to revisit these to see if my previous convictions held up.Feel free to leave some claps or follow if you enjoyed what I wrote!
And finally here’s a list of games I played in 2019, plus or minus a few:
Dishonored 2
Firewatch
Return of the Obra Dinn
Sekiro
Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown
EVE Online
Remnant: From the Ashes
Stellaris
Endless Space 2
Mordhau
Dying Light
Dishonored: Death of the Outsider
Crawl
Dota Underlords
Kind Words
Apex Legends
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
HEMA the biggest nerd game of them all
