tags: #annual #review [[2022 Review]] 2023 was a big one. It will have been my last year as a single woman. A pivotal year spent looking ahead to and preparing for a transition to married life with my future husband, but also one spent enjoying and appreciating the moments I have before this transition. The last days spent working from home in my childhood bedroom. Enjoying whatever takeout my dad and I decided to get for lunch that day. Watching the Price is Right while we eat, as we used to when my grandmother lived with us. Dinner every night, sharing the mundanities we experienced that day. The last holidays where it is [me and my parents], and not [me and my husband] and [my parents]. Of course, I have many months to go until the wedding at the time of my writing this. But I've always been prone to nostalgia for the present, and how it will all too soon become the past. (wow I have rlly complicated feelings about how I've already lived the majority of the life I'll be able to live with my parents. even if they live for decades more as I hope they do, the part of my life that is [me and them] has mostly passed - need to put that somewhere) What else happened this year? I lost a friend. It feels unbearable, suffocating, until a point comes three six nine months later at which you realize you are bearing it. You are breathing. Then you think, *but he is not*, and it feels unbearable, suffocating, and the timer starts all over again. [[0014. walking through grief]] is my favorite thing I wrote in 2023. Here's the last thoughts I want to leave future me with for this year. On ambition. I am good at my work. Many days I enjoy the work I do. On the days I don’t, I genuinely enjoy collaborating with the people I work with. But by no means do I live and breathe my work. More and more I am fully content to show up for my 40ish hours, do a great job, then go home. I think past me would have thought this was depressing. A hallmark of mediocrity. I don’t know. Maybe it is. Maybe it’s cope for not yet having founded a company that will change the world, nor written a Great American Novel, nor worked on a cure for cancer. Maybe I’m feeling a tad beaten down by the grind and incessant bleak hopelessness that permeates too much of the media I consume. But — Throughout it all I have strived to be a kind and caring friend. A compassionate daughter. A loving girlfriend and fiance. Soon, a devoted wife. That quietude of soul. I feel that when I’m at dinner laughing with my parents, singing my heart out at karaoke with my friends, in the quiet moments with the ones I love. If I work so that I can sustain those moments, what could be grander? What could be more ambitious? That’s somewhat facetious when I read it. Lots of things are grander and more ambitious. But it *is* grand. It *is* a worthy ambition. Worthy. And yet. I *am* struck with yearning to experience an awakening like the one Richie has in the Forks episode of The Bear. Richie from the Bear is someone who is operating below the line. He hasn't accomplished as much with his life as he'd hoped, the woman he loves and mother of his daughter is engaged to someone else, he lost his best friend to suicide, and he resists change. Until he stages at a Michelin starred restaurant in Chicago and it alters his view on life. To be around peers who are passionate about what they do, care about every detail, and what to make *every second count*. He realizes the power of taking yourself and what you do seriously. Of being serious. I want that too. I want it all. Why not hold space for it all? ## This Year * Watched Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. I am/was a huge Harry Potter fan growing up. I remember attending a midnight launch party for the Deathly Hallows, my parents buying me the book at that party, waking up, reading the book the entire day while my family spent time with my grandmother who was in the hospital, and finishing late that night. I was **skeptical*** of the Cursed Child, given what I knew about the storyline going in. And honestly, the story makes no fucking sense. But everyone should watch this for the visual effects. They are magical. * [[Everything Everywhere All at Once]] took the media by storm and won a ton of Oscars! * Annual anniversary omakase at Sushi Nakazawa. * Tried Le Bernardin. Impeccably executed food, if not the most exciting. * Planning our wedding. It is *almost* a damn shame that the idea is to only have one of these, because I'm having fun and I'd love to plan one again. * Getting to know ChatGPT. * Stardew Valley. what resonated with you? - having fun going about my play and building a farm and building relationships. peaceful. go at your own pace. explore. * Civ. what resonated you? - building an empire, going for my science and culture victories in peace, actually probably says a lot about what I value in society * Parents learned some things about me that led to painful conversations. * Continued integrating my fiancé into the fam! * Danced under the electric sky at the Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas! It was an extremely overwhelming experience and a delight for the senses. Favorite moments: watching GriZ shred it on the saxophone at Cosmic Meadow. Enjoying the fireworks while dancing in the rain to the Above and Beyond. OK, sitting on the ground in the rain swaying to the tune of Above and Beyond. “It’s raining it’s pouring a black sky is falling it’s cold tonight…" We also had some great food while we were in Vegas. I'm drooling over the short rib agnolotti at Scarpetta. * The last time I ever saw one of my friends. * Became more intimately acquainted with grief. * Which led to walking, hiking, learning more about the beauty that surrounds me. I wrote [[0014. walking through grief]] to make sense of this. * And culminated at Macchu Picchu in Peru. I need to write more about this. * Fire season hit NY. For several weeks this past summer New York had terrible air quality due to Canadian wildfires. Apparently this is typical on the West Coast, but I've never experienced it before. * Rezz Rocks. A very fun show in a stunning venue. * Asking all my bridesmaids! something rlly special about taking your fav girls in life and saying hey I want you standing by my side for this. * Hadestown, Merrily We Roll Along, Here Lies Love, Sweeney Todd. Thrice. I need to write more about what all these shows mean to me, especially what Sweeney Todd means to me. This was my year of musical theatre. * Buying The Dress. * Invisalign. * Shipped some pretty cool internal bulk operations tools at work. ## Looking Ahead What makes my heart sing? Pursue it relentlessly. Curiosity as a compass. Fitness. Transition to married life. Reframing my perspective on ambition. Forever realizing how much I love my friends. --- Created: December 31, 2023 Last Updated: March 22, 2024