Cozy and Curious

The year of 2024 has been a good one, if I do say so myself. While I still have so much growing to do, I’m starting to feel that my age is teaching me there isn’t endless time to do it. A mantra I’ve been using lately is, “I cannot control everything, and if not now, then when?” The latter part feels like a grounded, wiser version of YOLO, shaped by experience rather than impulse.

There have been so many changes in my life—changes that a younger version of me could never have imagined. Honestly, I’m not sure that version of me even understood what the future might hold. Now, I find myself so curious about what’s ahead—what new opportunities will arise, what steadiness I’ll find, and how my work will continue to bring me passion and focus. I’ve shifted towards cultivating a cozier life while also expanding my counseling theoretical palette.

In my mid-30s, I can say that I’ve never truly left the safety of school and learning. I continue to seek growth, which feels fitting for an overachiever who came from a low-income school. My mom’s insistence that I “study hard to make it” left a lasting impression. Some would call that dedication a good thing; others might urge me to slow down and enjoy life. I’m starting to understand the saying, “Youth is wasted on the young,” though I also recognize that I’m not that old. Am I? Still, this carpal tunnel and stiff lower back seem to suggest otherwise. It reminds me of a meme I saw: “I miss childhood, when my back didn’t hurt.”

As I look to the new year, I’ve made some resolutions. I want to get my blog more active again, reflect more, and plan a trip for the following year. The end and beginning of a year naturally make me more reflective. I also want to focus on healthier eating habits and better financial decisions.

I’m proud of the milestones I’ve hit this year. I’ve kept up my hot yoga practice—it’s true that I might not be the fittest, but I’m definitely flexible, which my dog seems to appreciate when I bend to pick him up. I’ve also read more for fun, thanks in part to audiobooks. I have also had some pretty big physical moves, one of the photos is my first studio apt.

So, thank you, 2024, and hello, 2025. Let’s see what’s next.

Where do I go from here?

So something big happened with me just recently, I had a tooth extraction!, alright that is not what I was going to blog about although that experience was the worst. However, something huge did just happen for me, it was getting a piece of paper saying that I am eligible to practice without supervision, not to give to much away but I work in mental health. This is more connected what it means for a person that came from where I came from to reach something and no longer have a blueprint on what to do next. The experience and uncertainty of upward social mobility.

I don’t think that this gets talked about, or at least it is my anxiety that is getting the best of me, that when a person that makes it through the public school system, being supported by a mom that worked over 12 hours a day (and still does at times), being considered lower income, bajo recursos in Spanish, meaning low resources in English, getting himself through college and grad school under constant criticism, fear of being outed, then coming out, living with anxiety. It’s not talked about how scary it is to reach what our parents only dreamed of, and now on my own and think “fuck okay I did it, I reached the top of this mountain…fuck, now what?” I can’t speak for all immigrant families, lets be clear about that, however when they come to the US the dream of making it, is rightly called a dream cause its foggy, dreamy, thick with possibility, but also a little unclear and seems to change with time and context. Again can’t speak for all immigrant families.

I am getting a lot of societal messages about what I SHOULD do next, open up a business, start working 40 hours a week, you know just accept it, and move on and do what you do, fucking pay taxes and shit (literally). It’s not that I can’t ask for support or that I don’t have it. I am just in some uncertainty and some discomfort, about this place that I am in. It’s like another coming of age, from a person that didn’t think that they would make this far. That one foot in front of another shit worked a little too well, I manifested a little too hard haha. I am appreciative of all that it took for me to get here. I know that it took so much for me to get here, so much for me to even put one foot in front of another. It’s like grief, saying goodbye to something that was a struggle and reminded that without it I wouldn’t have been motivated to be here. What has been helping me process this is talking about it, sharing the really funny story of that day.

The day that I took the exam I actually lost all of my identification, I had to bring it to show who I was and then as I was going to my car to put things away, it fell from my hands and fell down a storm drain on the side of road. I called the city and everything to get it and they said that it was a no go because by the time that they got there it would have been in the ocean.

Now I am thinking of what I want to do next, and I think that I want to start something new and start another life project, because that is what school has conditioned me to think. I think what I am looking for is another blueprint, but I also want to live a softer life, because dang was it difficult to get where I am. I am so proud of myself and I am scared at the same time.

Too soon or not soon enough.

I really hate the pandemic it took away my ability or at least the comfort to be with people during Lunar New Years which is more meaningful for me than the Gregorian calendar new year, also I wasn’t able to celebrate with my loved ones because of it as well. Doesn’t mean that I can’t reflect. I read something before 2022 new year that went something to the effect of ‘don’t let the let the last week diminish the growth and learnings you had this past year.’

That is so true, this past year learned that commitment is a working relationship. I started a new job which is why I have been posting so sporadically. And since I have been going out less I have less photos to post as well, I didn't get to live out my fall fashion fantasy because I have been hermiting this whole time, and one of these past weeks I was crying throughout the day for 2 days. I am looking fwd to a few things this coming year tho, I will be making some big moves, being more independent, and I will finally have a space of my own (I hope) I also want to spend more time with people that I love and care for; also more delicious coffee! the world is going through so much and I can’t even begin to imagine the insignificance that I hold in the grand scheme of things but at times that is also helpful to just think about how small I am in this vast universe and the globe. With a heaping dose reality that Southern CA is so fucking expensive! This year will be filled with beauty, stability, health and wealth.

Things will clear up in two weeks and then you x_x

I am actually so stressed, and I am screaming out into the void to let it know that I am here and I hope , and I know that I will be able to make it. The weather is starting to change to fall and that means that it will be more gloomy that it will be sunny. So the mood is going to take a little bit of a down turn, I hope to take more vitamins to help with that. In addition I am back on my coffee BS right now. I have learned to take that in moderation, because too much creates anxiety and too little to none will causes a headache. I stay close to the meme that says, 'adulthood is just saying this will clear up in 2 weeks and they you die' lol that makes some sense. Another said, 'From 25-65 are the soul wrenching years of your life because all you do is work,' that one makes sense right now also. In the time that I have been away from blogging. I started another job, so I am working the 40 plus hour work week just like the statistic of being an American, and getting paid peanuts for it. My goal is to do absolutely nothing for one of my rest days.

The big three-oh

So I turned 30 while at the potential slowing down of the quarantine. As I write this CA has lifted it's restrictions for fully vaccinated people and as my last post said myself and my family are fully vaxed. I had a birthday last year in the middle of it, so I was thinking that I should not count this year right, technically I am still 29, but that is not how time works, even though time is a construct. What is a reminder for certain of my age is my body, I fully feel that my body is now fits with the actual "old soul" that I was describe myself when I was in HS, oh how naïve to the world I was then. In addtion to physically feeling older, I also have different expectations for things and people, as to expect with age, as well as some body aches. I asked my mom what she was like when she was 30 and she said, “oh mijo ya tenia tres hijos, so I was trying to make money to feed y’all.” When I asked my dad he was pointing out the ways that he had to work harder than anyone he knew when he was my age and just ranted for an hour... While both of those interactions were letting me know that I am a very different 30 than they were and it is a very different time. My parents divorced when I was 4 which was also when they were in their early to mid thirties; so that gives me some insight on how things were, but that story and the implications of that in a different post (this is a semi happy, modest post).

I am a very different 30 than my parents were, according to some media and coloquial language, I am a geriatric millennial, and a product of the most advertised and marketed children in America to date. So it makes sense that consumerism is conditioned and it’s taking work to unlearn that. Also as a different 30, this is an economy where most people can’t afford to purchase a home on their own, when in the past they could, resources aside. I am different 30 because I have the internet to look things up and I have adaptability, and know how to use technology. In addition to that, I think that I have the ability to apply some of the awareness (or hypervigilance) that I have learned while growing up as a child of immigrant parents and anxious. Also the older I get the less I really know about the world and some things I know better than my parents, and some things they defs were right about.

So happy birthday to me as I imagine what I want my life to be like, I choose happiness.