2023: New life, Old life, Present Goals + yearly recap

Happy New Years earthlings!

It’s that time of year when everyone is in a frenzy trying to survive the holiday season, people will prepare to write the wrong year on everything, and all of humanity is making goals for the New Year that they will only follow for a few days until realizing it doesn’t fucking matter because the New Year is just another day in our lives :)

No, but seriously, I rarely make any specific goals for the New Year unless they’re important since I know that the excitement from the holidays will end, and it’s just gonna be another Tuesday for me.  But I still attempt to make goals anyway because why not.  So I’m gonna share some goals I have for 2023 and talk about this year and how it affected me.

I may not achieve these specific goals, but I always end up achieving something even if it isn’t what I was expecting to achieve.  I just like making a rough bullet-point list of what I want to aim for and seeing how it goes.

Now before I continue I want to take a minute to dramatically spill some backstory of my life to you.  Feel free to skip this part and look straight at the goals, but stick around if you want some chaotic stories.  I’m doing this just to give some context as to why this year was such a major year in my life.  I know I’ve told stories online of my past, but never said exactly how I got here or told the story in order.  I plan on writing a memoir actually and making a series where I tell miscellaneous stories of my experiences in detail, but for now, I’ll just give a general summary.

So I came from a sad little family.  Just me, my parents, and my 21-pound Shih Tzu who made me realize that parenting a life form is harder than it looks.

But to cut to the chase I was isolated from the outside world (not an exaggeration.  I rarely interacted with people outside the church).  I was raised to believe horrible things about misunderstood people and believed the abuse I endured was normal.  It wasn’t until I hit my teens and joined the internet did I actually start to meet new people of diverse backgrounds who helped educate me and unlearn many of these morals.

I also learned through these kind souls after sharing my life and taking note of healthy parent-child relationships, that demeaning your child, throwing them into walls, and threatening to kill them wasn’t exactly a sign of love.  I started to become aware of the abuse and wanted to leave, but I couldn’t.  I had no job, no money, no car, and pretty much no future.  Not to mention my mother raised me to lack much independence which I suspect was on purpose.

So after a while, I entered my young adult years and met my current boyfriend.  He not only showed me what unconditional love felt like for the first time but was patient with me as he taught me many things about life and growing up that I lacked because of my constant isolation.  He taught me how to cook, drive, fill a car with gas, and even stuff on taxes and getting a job I had failed to learn at home.  But most importantly he taught me how to love myself.  And my mother was pissed that he had taught me all of this.  She even threw a tamper tantrum in the car once when she found out I had learned to fill a car with gas, saying my boyfriend was crazy, only men should fill cars with gas, and I could explode or some crazy shit.

But I knew from the day I met my boyfriend that he was the one and I didn’t want to be with anyone else.  My parents–despite never letting me date–approved of the relationship.  At least my dad did.  My mom was on board until she found out about our plan to move in together at the end of the year.

For context, my mother is a hardcore Christian conservative, so I think that explains enough on its own.  I have nothing against any religion but she used hers for evil and pushed ideologies on e that I didn’t agree with.

Now, I’m not a doctor, but it’s safe to say that she basically had a psychotic break and went wild.  I’m talking screaming, throwing herself on the floor, flailing her limbs, crying, and begging.  For days she spoke to “the voice” in her head that she claimed was God and did things he “told” her to do.  Including spreading lies about me and my boyfriend that contradicted each other depending on who she was talking to and what she wanted them to believe.  She even tried getting law enforcement involved multiple times.  She also secretly plotted to send me to a Christian boot camp (This included tricking me into thinking I was going to a summer camp only to be sent to a church) and tried to dispose of any legal documents I owned so I couldn’t leave.  The house became a danger zone and the abuse intensified as I was left with many scars at the end of it all, both physical and mental.  Luckily my dad and my therapist (that my mom refused me to go to before eventually attempting to manipulate her) were on my side, and helped me find the legal documents she hid, distract my mom, and give me game plans to help me survive in the real world.

Then the day came.  December 26th, 2021.  I packed my bags, waited for my mom to get out of the house then— then it all stopped.  The escape I conducted for years had come to a halt and here’s why.  My dad originally decided to take my mom to church, lying that they were having service that day just to get her out of the house, but he passed out, presumably because of stress.  So those plans were thrown out the window…for a while.  He came to after a few minutes and convinced my mom to take him to a hospital farther away.  And I’m glad he did.  That gave me just enough time to gather my bags and my dog, pack my shit in the Uhaul my boyfriend rented, and leave.  We passed by their car on the way out just a minute after I waved my middle finger to the house that had hurt me for 18 years.

And now cut to this year.  I moved in with my boyfriend and his parents to a completely new state, got my dog put under my name legally, got my driver's permit, learned to cook more, went on beautiful vacations with the love of my life, explored intimacy with my partner, found beauty in bodies and other things I was taught to hate because of purity culture, explored my gender and my sexuality, learned to overcome a lot of insecurities I had, gained a lot of my passion and motivation back for the things I loved and even discovered new interests.  I got so much work done regarding my novels this year, met new people, started this YouTube channel, advanced in my career, openly expressed my identity for the first time, went to drag shows, explored places on my own, got my first debit card, got a job freelancing in my preferred line of work, started paying for things on my own, gained the freedom I had dreamed of all my life, and so much more.

Things aren’t perfect and there’s still a lot to work on in my life, but I’m doing better than I’ve ever been.  I can’t wait to see what the future holds, and for once I gladly welcome this new year, because I finally have proof that things will get better.

So as I said before, I don’t have many goals for this upcoming year and don’t usually force myself to accomplish them.  But still, it’s worth a shot.  So here are few things I wanna do next year.

1. Get my ears re-pierced (the fucker on the right closed up)

2. Get my driver's license

3. Get a more stable job unrelated to freelance work

4. Get a proper health insurance plan (Why is it so fucking expensive just to exist?)

5. Get a psychiatrist (I may be doing better but the trauma don’t stop 😎)

6. Start college again

7. Educate myself more on the diversity of our world

8. Allow myself to be more open with my creative side and not hold back.  I want to express myself and am tired of following certain styles or rules.  My interests are eclectic and that’s okay.  I may be bad at sticking to consistent themes, and that may not be great for marketing, but my happiness comes first.

This year was a major time in my life that I spent discovering myself and starting a completely new life in a completely new state.  Things are wonky, messy, and even scary, but I’m happy to have a chance to start fresh and I want to spend the future continuing to better myself and improve my life.  It’s a slow and painful process but the journey is worth it and I wouldn't have it any other way.  Welcome, 2023.