This is the only image in my google photos dated 2010. Honestly, accurate to my writing experience for the past decade. IT CAN STAY I’LL ALLOW IT.
*loud sobbing noises*
Okay, enough of that. Sort of. But that, in and of itself, is not a post.
Fun fact: 2010 – 2019 encompasses my age being 20-30, give or take. (I was 20 at the start of 2010 and hit 30 in the last months of 2019.) Which is convenient when it comes to thinking about decades. Benefits of being born in 1989, I guess. That, and my birth heralded the Berlin Wall coming down. That was totally all me, and not the result of a bunch of people resisting very hard and working together. Totally.
*ahem*
Right, then. So in the last decade I:
Had One Really Good Relationship
It was long term, we were in love at the time, and it was important for helping me grow. I don’t want to talk about it more than that, but! It felt like my first For Real Adult Relationship and it lasted for over three years, so that’s definitely something.
Moved to Seattle
And now I have been here, freezing my ass off in the darkness of January, for six years!
Graduated College
I have two degrees, both of which feel like, to steal a joke, very expensive placemats. Studio Art and Information & Computer Science, which have opened a roughly equal amount of doors for me, that is to say around zero to one. (That’s not entirely true, as I’m sure they’ve gotten me interviews sometimes, but in terms of career my CS degree hasn’t been nearly as useful as I was hoping it would be.) I don’t regret getting those degrees, because I actually do pretty well in a traditional structured class environment and desperately need external accountability in order to get through things that are boring, and almost every programming class has at least one boring bit. I just wish they’d been what I was sold on when I was 18 and looking at colleges, you know?
Though I’m hardly the only person to have this problem. Which sucks for all of us, but there’s comfort in it.
Despite all this, still proud of those degrees, because they represent a lot o hard work, and I learned a whole lot. Perhaps especially in the classes I needed for General Education purposes, and to round out my Studio Art degree. I can now not embarrass myself in front of the humanities majors when they’re talking philosophy and stuff! #worthit
Learned a Whole Bunch of Shit, Learned to Listen
Even outside of school, I’ve ended up learning a whole bunch. Social justice and a better awareness of marginalized folks being the main non-skill thing. I know way, way more about the world around me than I did, and the struggles people go through, and I try to stay aware of that and help where I can every day. I think this is the development I’m most proud of, even if it hasn’t translated to much concrete stuff yet. It’s made me a better person, and that’s more than enough.
I mean I also learned how to code Python and repair things and tons of infosec theory and how to hang drywall, but PRACTICAL SKILLS TO THE BACK WE’RE HAVING A MOMENT HERE.
Figured Out This Whole Exercise Thing
It’s been very on-again off-again, but I do value exercise now and can get in pretty good shape in my “on” phases. Still working on consistency. The trick in college was getting myself to actually go do the workout. The trick now is…actually getting myself to start the workout! Though in college in was less excusable as I had way more free time during Prime Exercise Hours, aka Not the Night.
Also at one point I could squat almost double my bodyweight. Which was rad, and I want to actually get to double my bodyweight at some point in the next yearish.
Figured Out Some Gender Stuff
See the last post.
Kind of Failed to Launch a Career
My career has been, so far, in three different fields, and my pay has gone down each time. Which feels like getting in a biplane, getting to the runway, and then having the wheels pop, and then the entire landing gear just falling off the plane. FEELS GOOD
Worked four years in a datacenter, about four months in construction, and then like 7-8 months in records collection at a pet insurance company. Long stretches of unemployment in there. It’s a bummer, because I would have liked my trajectory to go, you know, up. But I’m in something pretty stable right now, and I can afford to eat and have a roof over my head and take care of Jabberwocky the Iguana Empress, and that’s not nothing. Soon I’ll have a library science degree, which I’ve been at for so long it kind of feels like it’ll just be another placemat, but it’ll potentially open a lot of doors. More a good tension wrench than a full on key, but I’ll take it.
Found Out I Really Like Pet Reptiles
I always figured I’d get a dog, but instead I’ve learned I love reptiles. They’re sweet in their own way, some of them are dumb as posts, and they can be stressful to take care of during power outages. But I don’t have to take them out every day or clean a litter box, and they can handle themselves a lot of the time.
Plus I’ve never met a reptile with a personality I didn’t like, from Melville the snake’s foolish bravery, to Bonnie’s fear of the entire world, to Chrysanthemum’s love of climbing and snoozing, to Jabberwocky’s hatred of all humanity, to Jerry’s love of all things BUG and tendency to look up cutely at people.
I’m not sure I’ll get another one after Jabberwocky, just because things feel uncertain right now and reptiles both live a long time and are tricky to move between living places. But I’m very grateful to have discovered this niche of the pet world.
Didn’t Become a Game Designer
At least, not professionally. Surprise, past me! Sorry about that, turns out the working conditions in 99.9% of the video game industry fucking suck. You did write the better part of a tabletop RPG, though!
Was Officially Diagnosed, Mentally and Physically
Specifically with mental illness (anxiety and depression, fuuuuuck). Also with stomach stuff (IBS, yo), and then figuring out that I can curtail it by eating a shitton of fermented/probiotic-rich food. So now I can eat mostly “normally” again, and it’s rad, especially after spending a good chunk of the decade on a really restricted diet.
The diagnoses have mostly enabled me to do something about these issues, though, and for that I am grateful. Especially therapy, therapy fucking rocks.
Wrote a Lot
Wrote and did big rewrites on a novel, wrote a bunch of short stories, had a few published, kept writing this blog (oh my god it has been up so long), and generally just kept on keeping on. Like I mentione din the last post, I’d like my writing to be more productive. But I feel like I need to finish the big rewrite of Shivering Deeps first. I’ve been working on that book for the better part of a decade, too. It’s been a good learning process, though. Just wish I’d done it faster.
Got Organized
Relatively speaking. I figured out that bullet journaling, and variations, work really well for me! Which has been nice. And now I’m a lot less likely to lose track of dates and stuff than I used to be.
Met a Shitton of People
Through social media of many varieties (the latest of which is Mastodon, ‘sup Mastodon???), through meeting people at group things in person (e.g. the SF2W meetup, RIP for the time being it seems), through tabletop RPGs and parties and dating and by being introduced by friends. I’ve met a ton of people who have had an incredible impact on my life, on the whole, and I’m grateful in some way for every one of them, even the ones I’m scared of or have grudges against or just plain don’t like at this point. I learned something from each of them, and I’m a much more mature person today than I was ten years ago.
Got Lost
See last post. If you told 20 year old me where I’d be at as 30 year old me, they’d tilt their head at you and go “wait, what?” and then there’d be a long explanation because no edition of me wouldn’t ask a shitton of questions. But there are worse places to be than lost in the proverbial woods, and at least I have a compass in the form of a support network, such as it is. Now if only I could find a map…
Conclusion
I’m sure there’s more. Probably a lot more. But I’ve rambled on long enough for now.
How’d your last decade go?
PS Here’s the last selfie I took in 2019. I realize you can’t exactly compare it to the image above, and you’ve seen it before, but it’s what I have.
Last selfie of 2019.
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