Congratulations, you've been single for a year!

Going alone to the beach... best feeling ever!  

Wow, in a week's time, I will have been single for an entire year. Although to most people this might not sound like a long time but what a journey it has been... Here is a breakdown of what I've been getting up to in this year. 

1) Getting over my ex

The widely accepted way to figure out how long it takes to get over your ex is to take the duration of the relationship and divide that by half. For a while (especially at the very beginning), that was a comforting thought because it felt like a milestone I could achieve. All it would take would be some patience, strength and time and I would eventually be able to forget him. 

That only lasted for a month or two before I realised that it wasn't that easy. To truly get over someone you have to work at it every day, making conscious decisions to not contact them etc. During that time I made some decisions that ultimately defined my healing process. One of these was to redefine my priorities. What was going to become the most important thing in my life? This was when I rediscovered my relationship with God. Without the distraction of a boyfriend (which shouldn't be the case anyway) and with the pain to help me focus, I felt like my faith was reawakened. It was truly a turning point in my life where I reassessed the way I was living my life and what I was living for. I wanted to take that one step further and hold myself accountable to the changes I was committed to making.

I would just like to pause for a second here and to say how proud I am of myself that I made this next step.

After having struggled with mild depression for a couple of years now, I felt like it was time to reach out to a counsellor because the depression was hindering my efforts of living a better, more purposeful life. I forced myself to contact a counsellor and started weekly sessions with them where I first worked to understand what I was feeling and why I was feeling those feelings. I learnt that it was all about perspective. I had an unspeakable fear of my depression and its triggers because I had linked them towards the massive failures in my life (being kicked out of high school etc.) and it wasn't until my counsellor and I started to chip away at that fear that I truly started to feel like I was being set free of that burden. I also started learning about boundaries. How to say no. How to back away from situations I wasn't comfortable with. How to walk away from drama guilt free. 

To conclude, when I first began this journey of 'getting over my ex', I thought that was all I was going to accomplish. In some ways I feel that I have succeeded. I no longer become an emotional train wreck when he does pop into my mind every now and again and I've gotten to a good place where I no longer want to get back together with him nor do I lament over what was lost. But better than that and what I absolutely did not expect, was establishing my faith again and the personal growth I have had both in my relationship with God and with myself. 

2) Developing my work  

One of the key objectives I gave myself when I first joined The Vine as a graphic designer was to push my own comfort zones as an artist/designer and to develop and expand my skill set. I have had no formal training in graphic design which made me feel that I was grossly under-qualified for the job. But if I was going to be placed at a place such as this, I was going to put my faith in God and do what I can to make up for my lack of experience and skills.

I really have to thank all the staff at The Vine for giving me the space and time to grow and mature. Letting me stumble once in a while. Being encouraging instead of disciplining. Believing in me even when I had no confidence in my own abilities. This allowed me to blossom.

Looking back at my earlier works and comparing it to my more recent ones, I can see the physical evidence of my evolvement. I barely knew how to use indesign and illustrator when I first began! And now I have defined my aesthetic (though this is ongoing), learned how to 'brand', have so much more confidence with my own ideas and most importantly kept my hunger  to learn. 

3) Slowing down

Our key message as a church this year is to slow down. Although our schedules and work loads doesn't really allow us to do so, I've definitely made efforts to slow down in my personal life. As a super ambitious individual, I am prone to fill my personal time with activities and social events. FOMO is a real struggle and in a city such as Hong Kong, it's even harder because the pace here is so fast and there is always something going on.

I started freeing up my weekday nights and reserving Sundays for family time. I made sure to reserve Wednesdays for cell group meetings and made it a priority. I started being more purposeful with who I met and who I was surrounding myself with. I was careful to only go to events I was most keen on. I started using the extra time I had in bible study and time with God. I definitely feel that this has given me a new appreciation for single-hood where I can do as I please and not have to worry about another person. I've also discovered my love of 'me time' and the joy of my own company. Although this is an area that still needs plenty of work (such as using my time more productively by learning a new language or working on personal projects etc.), I do see a significant difference in my approach to my personal life. 

4) Adulting 

As a young adult, part of me still feels like I'm in my teens. This year has been a series of events that require some hard adulting. Now that I have many older friends, I realise how silly some of these sound.  

Getting over my teenage angst and repairing my relationship with my parents.  

Being financially independent.  

Paying bills.  

Treating my parents / grandparents to meals.  

Chipping in for family trips.  

Planning family trips.  

Moving out (though I moved back home). 

Planning and going to my first ever trip without anyone 'supervising'.  

Working full time. 

Actively contributing to my own savings. 

Actually having savings.  

These are but a few of the mundane little things that adults would feel as very normal. If anything it feels a bit self-congratulating to list these things out as if they were adulting achievements. My only excuse is that I'm a 21-22 year old... My aim for next year is to set aside some money to use for investments, to travel more and to get my drivers license. Small but achievable goals! 

At the start of this blog post I thought I had nothing much to write about this year. But after this reflection I see that I have made progress and although they're not the 'usual' accomplishments, they have still impacted my life greatly and I believe will shape the next few years of my life. Being single is not so bad after all!