2021 Reflections & 2022 Intentions

It’s hard to believe that another year has come and gone. 2021 has been instrumental in healing and reframing relationships for me. While it doesn’t look like objectively that much has changed about my circumstances, I feel like I’ve grown so much.

From 2018 - 2020, I kept my head down and focused solely on creating content for this space as well as building the remote life for myself that I wanted. I spent very little time and attention cultivating anything outside of work. While work still brings me immense joy, 2021 also taught me to take a step back and expand that scope of joy and passion to include other components of life.

I’ve never felt the need to categorize my life into chapters but for some reason, my experiences this year happen to correlate neatly with the seasons.

Winter/Spring:

I spent the first half of my 2021 exploring Taipei with MTC classmates. It was strangely refreshing to reset my rigid routine by learning to relish in the joy of spontaneous hangouts, inside jokes, and hours spent chatting about absolutely nothing. The first half of this year taught me to be flexible and allowed me to reframe my relationship with productivity. I learned to release my iron grip on content creation and to prioritize the experiences that I was having in real life (over those I was having online).

I also began to date again during the first half of this year. Getting into a casual (but committed) relationship taught me the value of respect. It also taught me the importance of voicing my needs and how essential that expression was in connectivity.

Summer:

The middle of this year was marked by a lockdown in Taipei.

Taipei experienced a “huge” outbreak just as summer hit. In the span of about two weeks, my entire social life changed. Chinese classes went online; the majority of my friends left; and this shift marked the beginning of a season of slowing down, re-focusing on content creation, and getting the support that I needed.

This summer season triggered a lot of emotions around loss and grief as it felt like everything we had known changed overnight. We never got the chance to celebrate our friendships or to say proper goodbyes. While I still have some regrets about this period of time, this middle section of 2021 also marked the beginning of intentional reflection and healing.

This summer, I finally started therapy.

I had been meaning to get support for my overall well-being but was too scared to take that leap before this year. This COVID lockdown gave me the time and space to reflect on my experiences.

This slowdown also marked a more intentional approach to content creation and the beginning of creating deeply healing relationships with a core group of friends here.

Autumn/Winter Again:

As autumn rolled around, Taipei gradually began to open up. Without mandarin classes on my schedule, I was able to restructure my days with more intentionality by balancing work, friendships, and travel. I’ve been able to show up for my loved ones and am also in the process of further exploring the community here in Taipei.

Intentions/Resolutions For 2022:

For the next year, I’d like to continue down this journey of discovering and acting out of love. I’d like to explore more of my emotional well-being as well as my identity by questioning the structures of relationality that we have all grown up with. I also intend to explore more of Taiwan and hope to continue to integrate authentically into the community here. Travel is also on the agenda but that’s dependent on global circumstances.

Sustainability:

Continue to shop secondhand only and begin to explore local brands that produce sustainable undergarments/swimwear
Vegetarian when I eat out
Carry my stojo and utensils around

Racism & Accountability:

Read at least 3 books on this topic
Give back regularly
Dive deeper into the history and culture of colonization here in Taiwan by spending at least one hour listening to podcasts or watching youtube videos a week on this topic