tipping the scales the other way
2024-01-21
i cupped my cheek and was shocked at how it
no longer filled my hand.
did i go too far? was i too zealous
in my delight of seeing the numbers slowly tick down to 0?
every part of myself is shrinking but i'm still
not yet satisfied. even though every time i look
in the mirror i am taken aback
by the person looking
back at me. i am afraid of hating
the person in the mirror,
as if the person in the mirror wasn't always me
the entire time.
Responding to You
2024-01-18
It's so strange how my past relationships were with people who I didn't particularly get along with. And I don't mean that I fought with them often. I mean that conversation was just hard with them. Conversation is hard for me with anyone, honestly. I can count on one hand the number of people that I consistently had good conversations with.
One of those people was friends with my ex. I wondered why it was so easy for me to talk to them but not my ex. I realized it was because my ex's friend was curious. They asked me questions to get the conversation started and it went on from there.
I brought this up to my ex. Maybe they could start asking me more questions and then I would talk more. The most bizzare thing is that they refused my request. They wanted me to be able to say things out of my own volition. Essentially what he said was, "I don't think I should need to do that. I'll wait for you until you want to say something."
This disappointed me. It's so hard for me conjure conversation topics just out of the thin air. I wasn't joking when I told him I needed something to respond to. Obviously, this guy is an ex for a reason.
This post that you are reading right now is also a response to something. Not all things I respond to is external. Sometimes it's just me responding to my own thoughts. What triggered this response was me realizing that I was falling fast for someone.
I was falling for someone who I can easily talk to. It's a first for me in a very long time. I suddenly feel like my voice is coming out for once. I kinda wrote about it before here. I do feel embarassed sometimes after talking to this person. But this feeling is so new to me that I can't quite seem to stop wanting to talk to them.
What I think sets this person apart from other people I've talked to is that they always have something to say back. And because I am also curious about them as well, I ask them questions back. If there are no questions, somehow my mind can make a connection to another topic almost immediately. And we have fun with our conversations. It can be lighthearted or it can be a little serious. This sounds like just a normal conversation but trust me when I say I've never had this to this extent before.
My mind just needs to be able to react to something. Maybe I need to react to tne enthusiasm that another person radiates. Or maybe it's just plain chemistry. I'm not asking to have insane levels of chemistry with everyone. I just want enough conversational skills to be normal.
What's Wrong With You?
2024-01-13
When I told one of my relatives that I was still single, they looked at me bewildered and exclaimed, "What's wrong with you?"
I know exactly what is wrong with me. But this is still a ridiculous question! There is nothing wrong with people who are single. I don't blame people who are single, by choice or just by circumstances. I am a mix of both.
The idea of dating makes me hesitant. In some ways, I am way too self aware to start dating again. There is a lot that I've learned about myself from my past relationships and it isn't pretty. Yes, I crush and fall for people easily, but the thought of actually being in a romantic relationship turns me cold. I'm just not confident I could avoid repeating my same mistakes (cue Julia Jacklin's Turn Me Down), despite having gone to therapy and continually working on my flaws. Dealing with your own baggage can be quite a lot. It plants seeds of doubt in my head of whether or not I'm even cut out for a relationship in general.
And those are just me problems. Trying to find someone in the first place gives me anxiety. I think most people my age (post-college age but like never-been-married age) use dating apps and that is not how I work. Granted, I've never used a dating app to get a date. I have used Bumble to go on friend dates, though. It was easy enough to setup a profile with minimal effort and I got matches well enough. Still, all of my matches went nowhere. Lack of chemistry, flakiness, ghosting, you've probably heard it all by now. In the end, it's just a numbers game. But I don't want it to be a game. I'm too much of a romantic. I want a meet cute. I want to get to know someone slowly over time. With a lack of places to organically meet people (other than like, work), it can be hard to foster relationships in a more personal way.
I'm not trying disparage the usage of dating apps. I know a lot of long term couples who have met on dating apps (okay, two, but that's like a solid 40% of my sample size) so it's definitely possible. It's just whether or not I want to go through the grind of it all. Because from what I hear (and have experienced from the platonic version), it is a grind.
But when I think a little more practically about finding a partner, it's not enough to leave it to chance. There's just so many things you need to think about. When I was younger, it was okay to date someone just because I liked them. I never stopped to think things like, "Would this person be compatible with my friends? My family (especially important because I'm living in a very white country as a POC)? My lifestyle? My values? My cat?" Now that I have a few relationships under my belt, those are things that concern me. Maybe you do need something like a dating app to be able to quickly filter people who don't fit the criteria. Of course, a dating profile is not a tell all about a person, but it could give enough hints about where they stand on things.
The most damning thing though, is that I don't know if I even have room in my life right now for dating. It's kinda funny to say that as someone who stays at home 99% of the time. Ever since I moved back home (who wants to date a 29 year old still living at home?), I don't like the idea of dating in my current environment. Lately, I have been focused on my parents, especially as they are aging and becoming frailer by the year. I've become the breadwinner in my family and picking up more responsibilities from them. I've also been having health issues that I'm currently trying to resolve. Additionally, I'm going back to school which sucks up a lot of my time. And since becoming single (four years ago) I realized that I have hobbies (!!). Hobbies are something that always seems to fall by the wayside whenever I get into relationships. Frankly, I've just been enjoying the time I have to myself.
There isn't anything wrong with any of the reasons above for my singleness. I think a lot of my relatives have different ideas of how someone should live life and that just doesn't align with their ideals. I enjoy being single. I can have crushes without expectations of anything and just enjoy flirting for the sake of it. Yes, I get wistful from time to time, but it's just not a priority for me at the moment. Maybe it will happen, maybe it won't. I'm just taking each day as it comes.
2023 with Hobonichi
2024-01-10
2023 was my 3rd year with Hobonichi. I changed up what I did a lot and there was a lot of trial and error. This year I had five books:
- Weeks Mega for all my planning needs
- Weeks for work
- A5 Cousin Avec for notes/journaling
- A6 5 Year Techo for memory keeping (this year was year 3 out of 5)
- A6 HON was originally for generic journaling but turned into a reading journal
Weeks Mega
This was my second year with the Weeks. I use it for planning, despite not always following my plans. I just love the form factor of the Weeks. It's compact and easy to bring with me places. I spent the most time in it.
Yearly Index
I used these two pages for tracking my mood and my weight. I steadily lost weight at around 2lb per month. I did loose a bunch of weight in the beginning of December due to being sick. I managed to gain it all back by the end of the year, though. My goal weight is 105lb and my vanity goal weight is 100lb. I am 5' (I think, I don't really know) so being a low weight is still healthy for me. There was a moment in July and August where I didn't track my weight and that was because I was in Japan and the Philippines during this time. I also stopped with mood tracking near the end of the year. I wasn't sure how helpful this was for me and I haven't done it at all this year (2024) either.
Monthly Pages
I have the hardest time utilizing monthly pages in any planner. I find it usually contains duplicate information and I hardly ever look at them. That being said, this was my favourite monthly spread. Deadlines. Tasks. Events. Very fun to make but not very useful.
Weekly Pages
The meat of the book. My layouts varied a lot. The usefulness also varied a lot. I always find that I am good at keeping up with it at the beginning of the week but as the week goes on, my resolve diminishes. Here are some of my favourite spreads from the year.
Cat sticker is from kisse.cat. Washi is a WonderPens and TheCoffeeMonsterzCo collab.
I literally don't remember where half of these stickers and washi come from lol.
Vanilla but functional.
Not every week has to be serious. This was a seriously SHINee (one of my favourite K-pop groups) week.
I enjoyed making these bar graphs but they were blank all week until I had all the numbers. Kinda bothered me.
I bought a portable printer in the latter half of the year and started printing out inspiration photos for myself. I don't know if they helped any but it certainly made things look prettier.
Notes Pages
I get a Mega because 80 pages of note pages is not enough for me. But 200 pages is too much. I end up using the extra for random things even when the year is over.
I tried to make an index of all my pages. I don't think it was too helpful. There were some pages that I did look at the index for (mostly the astrology page) but maybe I could have just added a page marker so I could have easily referenced it.
The first half of the year I really tried to keep track of my reading. But after my Japan/Philippines trip I really lost my resolve...
I also tried to keep track of exercising. It was not fruitful because I didn't exercise that much.
I kept track of reading progress. This was really fun to do and I kept up with it fairly well. It kinda sucked when I gave up on certain books but eh. Not every book is a keeper.
A sample of a "daily" page. I like to plan out my day with an hourly schedule.
I don't use a lot of stickers or washi at all so all my notebooks stay pretty slim by the end of the year. But I do like seeing the contrast between the used pages vs the untouched pages with my Weeks.
Weeks (Regular)
I didn't take any pictures of this because my Weeks for work was a mess. Literally. I just used the multi-pen that comes with Hobonichi orders. I scribbled notes hastily during meetings. No pretty spreads. Terrible handwriting. I don't know if it worked for me. I think I will try to be a little bit more mindful in 2024.
A5 Cousin Avec
I have no idea why I bought the Avec Cousin this year. The Avec is split into two books, January to June in one book and July to December in the other book. I know my reasoning at the time was that I went back to school last year and I wanted to split it between "before school starts" and "after school starts." But honestly, it could have all just gone into one book. This year I stuck with the regular Cousin.
Weekly Pages
These stayed largely unused. I tried a lot of different things. Putting my tarot card pulls here. Actually scheduling things in. Using it as a memory keeper. But I just kept forgetting this section existed. I think I would use it a lot more if the weeks pages were spread throughout the journal instead of being it's own dedicated section.
Monthly Pages
Again, I am so bad at using monthly pages. I think the below picture is the only time I actually used it.
Daily Pages
The first half of the year, I used it for note keeping. Which wasn't the greatest idea because it kinda defeated the purpose of dated pages since some days went over one page. And I wasn't even starting school yet so why did I use it for notes?? I know better now.
In the second half of the year I tried to use it for more traditional journalling. That didn't really pan out either. Towards the end of the year I used it more for tarot card pulls, astrological transits, and affirmations.
Astrology notes from when I was in a astrolgy book club on Discord.
Notes about The Great Gatsby.
One of my more aesthetic pages.
Some planning for my Japan trip. I was learning Japanese too (I didn't use a lick of it other than "thank you" and "sorry" and "excuse me").
I used this layout quite a lot. Time blocking. Astro transits. Gratitude. Tarot card pull. Random notes.
Maybe it's just the Capricorn in me but this was my favourite spread. Simple. Bold. Black and white. I meditated on affirmations a little bit more seriously.
A6 5 Year Techo
I really regret not getting a 5 Year Techo in 2020. It would have been great in hindsight. But I got one for 2021 instead. It's very personal so I didn't take any pictures of it. I get pretty granular with it, despite it being so small. I try to write as much about my day as possible. Very little reflection is done in here. On the right pages I write down my top 5 most listened to songs. I'm not always consistent with it. Turns out, June, July, and October are the months where I do the least journalling (Cancer, Leo, and Virgo season? I wonder if there is an astrological reason).
A6 HON
I bought this on a whim because it was shiny and new. I have no idea how it compared to the A6 Hobonichi Original but it feels like the same? Except for the cover maybe?
Early on in the year I tried to use it for journalling. But it kinda felt like I was duplicating what I was writing in my 5 Year. I am very wary about writing down my feelings in a book due to trauma over my parents reading my journals. So I transitioned from journalling to doing what I am now doing in my cousin, AKA tracking transits and card pulls. But September onwards I used it as a book journal. I would write down what books I read, how many pages, and what I thought about the book. If there was a day I didn't read anything, I would write a review of a book I had already read. It was fun and I'm keeping it up in 2024.
Yearly Calendar
Used it to keep track of when I read. I was able to extrapolate pre-September dates by looking at my 5 year entries. Not super accurate as I may have missed a date. I also made a mistake. All the x's are wrong. The source of truth are the highlighted dates.
Yearly Index
I recorded my tarot card pulls here. But starting in October (as you will see in the next picture), I transitioned to keeping track of how many pages I read.
I read A LOT of manga/graphic novels so I separated the pages between regular books and manga/graphic novels.
Monthly Pages
Okay, I actually liked what I did here. I wrote down what book I read each day. If I didn't read, I just covered it with washi. A good excuse to use washi!
Daily Pages
An example of some journalling pages. Very boring with a splash of washi.
One of my favourite pages. It's a little thick so sometimes it would just open automatically to this page. Very little written on it but it's so pretty.
An example of two book review pages. I didn't write too much.
Example of how some of my daily reading pages. Can range from huge text block to just one sentence.
TL;DR
Most of this post is just me showing off pictures. Yes, they're a little hard to read but it's on purpose. I experimented a lot this year. I think I will continue to experiment again this year. I'm never really fully satisfied with one way of doing things and there is always something that could be improved. In another post I'll detail how I'll use my books in 2024.
When It Becomes Real
2024-01-07
I want to meet you
But let's not meet
I don't think I could stand to be in the same space as you
Breathe the same air as you
Look at the same things as you
Hear the same things as you
I'd rather run away
Take a last minute vacation
Call in sick
Break my own leg
Turn around the moment I hear your voice down the corridor
But I think I would try sneak glances every now and then
Take a peek around the corner
Keep one earbud in so the other could pick up your voice
I want to meet you
I want to meet your gaze
and hold it
I don't want you to meet me