"**** you, 2019."
Add this to the long list of things of things I don't care for. Every year brings with it some bad and some good. Certainly, some years are worse than others. 2016 was a very difficult year for me, but it was also the year that I took a major step in conquering my self-esteem issues and learned how to start living as though I like myself.
It's important to appreciate what things a year brought you, both good and bad. So today I'm going to look back on 2019 and talk about important things I remember from it.
January 1: Overwatch Legos release
I have always loved legos, and around October 2018 I realized I now have enough money to start buying them for myself. That's both a blessing and a curse. I also like Overwatch (though I don't have much time to play anymore) and it was cool to get some minifigures of McCree and the gang.
February-March: ?
Gonna be honest, I don't remember much about these months. I know I had my birthday, and spring break. Makenna and I saw Gypsy at Ball State with some friends. It was...fine. I even had started journaling again, but most of my notes are about work stuff. It was a busy time for work, but personal stuff? Not sure what was going on. Probably a lot of stress and avoidance.
Oh yeah, on Feb 26, my sister had a baby. I was planning to visit my sister over spring break, but the baby kind of took priority. Which is fair.
April 24: Academy slideshow
This was my big work project for the spring semester, and some poor planning earlier in the year left me scrambling to complete it in time. I burnt myself out a bit, working on it in all my work free time and some of my personal free time. But I liked the result, so that was something.
June-July: Summer
I had a lot of lofty goals for the summer. I was going to buy a car, teach Makenna to drive, read The Stand, prepare all my programs for the upcoming school year...and more. A lot more. I ended up cleaning m room, cleaning out my computer, went to the zoo and water park with Makenna, visited Jack and TJ, and finished a song parody. In a two-month span, that fell a lot short of everything I wanted to accomplish. I got a bit depressed after two months of long days at home doing not too much. Although I did spend a lot of time out thinking and game designing on my parents' new deck, which was very nice.
August 10: Jason & Leann's wedding reception
My brother got married back in December '18, but it was a small ceremony with no reception. We made up for that. I had to take time off work and drive six hours in a day, but it was worth it to have all my family and many of our friends all together in one place. This was a truly good day, which is rare.
September 1: Game design contests
Starting in September, Buttonshy Games began a monthly game design contest. The best entry would be offered a chance at publication. Although I was very excited about this, it didn't go so well. Each month, I would have an idea for their constraints, but would get stuck and be unsure how to proceed. In October, I actually got a playtest in, but it didn't go well and just revealed that the game needed a complete overhaul, which I did not have time to complete. They have not posted anything for January. Hopefully, they do more contests now that I have scheduled time for game design.
September 4-9: Canada
I and my friends Jack, Kristina, Kelsey, and Rachel spent a weekend at the Stratford Theatre Festival, something I had not been able to do when I was a student at the Academy. It was both the first time I've been out of the country since 2012, and an incredibly fun trip that I already miss. One of the highlights of the year.
September 19: Day Zero Project
This was the day I stopped waffling and started working toward my goals. I wanted to wait until I felt ready, and now I'm sort of getting to the point that I'm ready, but I'm not sure I would be at this point if I hadn't started.
October 5-6: Skydiving
Probably 8 years ago, my dad and I agreed to go skydiving whenever he got below the weight limit. Well, after a lot of hard work, he got there, and after getting rained out once, we were able to take the plunge.
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| This is not my dad. |
October 15: Doughnuts and Dragons
This was the day that my high school classmate Blake Dollive opened a beer and board games store in Indy. I have thus far tried to make a trip over there once, but it has failed. That needs to go on the bucket list, I think. Okay, it's on there now.
November 7: Kelly!
Kelly came to visit me in Muncie! It was nice.
December 22-23: Family Christmas
My whole family was together for the third time this year (the first one I had to miss for work :'( ) We played a whole lotta board games.
Overall, this year was not bad. My depression came back, but I have started to deal with it in some new ways. I spent some good time with family and friends that I won't soon forget. I have taken a lot of concrete steps toward completing my goals, which is a huge change from where I was last year at this time (or even back in the summer, if you read that segment.)
Obviously, there was a lot more that happened. It's hard to gauge what should go in and what shouldn't. I could make this post two or three times as long if I thought hard enough. The 2020 recap probably will be a lot longer.
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