on a year (partial)

This post is already a week old in writing, but eh, what else is new.

Nothing like an average conversation with friends to make you realize you don't feel like you've grown much in the past year.

Well if you want to be technical, I guess you could say there's been some change, but it's not really the kind of sudden-in-your-face-growth that people expect an answer for whenever they ask you how you're doing and what your goals are in life. I sound like a parrot repeating those all the time even though I actually don't get asked them that much either, but maybe such phrases are enough to put me on edge now that I probably should be addressing them for once and not in the tone of a chronic procrastinator.

what else is not so new:

- Early on last year I went through a panic attack phase that stemmed from social anxiety, a fact that surprised one of my friends this year who told me that he would never have gotten that impression from me whenever we hung out. I guess I'm good at hiding it from the right people. But regardless, the fear doesn't feel so real anymore and I'm more comfortable now around people I'm not as familiar with... but I can't really describe why that is, though, other than perhaps that I don't really take a lack of proactivity from people so personally anymore. Maybe once in a while the sentiment will linger, but it's become more of a fact of life for me now that I recognize my vulnerability in this area and that it's really just okay to not be as naturally engaging as whatever average you perceive to be the norm all the time.

- I also recognize that I spend a lot of time and energy exerting myself on manners of little consequence. I doubt most people who ever get around to reading this entry actually care about anime, and yet the subject of the post below this one actually preoccupies my head for hours sometimes and I can't get it out unless I write it, and then share it with the world!- because a backlog of lists on Evernote (oh god that phrase sounded horrible as I wrote it) isn't as mentally fulfilling. The music of the openings I like in particular is my guilty-pleasure or fodder for music I like to listen to when I'm working or driving and don't feel like paying attention much, compared to podcasts or new music which I only prefer when I have the energy for them.

Ironically, I don't like the full length versions of anime songs so much as their bridges and second verses tend to incorporate elements that turn me off. It's the same dilemma I have with Christian music that sounds good in church but horrible to my ears when performed by their actual music artists. But lately I haven't been enjoying modern worship music much either, compared to the older hymns and stuff. I take it as sign that I'm growing old...der. and possibly more than that.

- I frequently worry in the back of my head about becoming irrelevant and retreading over the same thoughts again, like for example on this blog where I'm paranoid that half of what I write has already been said by me on a previous entry on here. It's a blog-world problem that occurs when you realize that you've been consistently writing blog entries every month for the past 10 YEARS what the heck (livejournal counts as 2, and no, I am not linking to that crap on here).

I forget sometimes now that the original reason I started blogging was for myself, and that I am the heaviest consumer and harshest critic of the words that I write. I would probably have bolded that sentence or something, except that frequently bolded phrases (as well as excessive hyperlinking) in blog entries and articles on the internet are one of my biggest pet peeves.

- If I sound looser in this entry than I usually do, it is probably because I am not filtering my written thoughts as much as usual... for no particular reason other than the first line I wrote. All I've had in the last hour [edit: as of the writing of this sentence] is milk that I don't expect to finish before I leave town for Hawaii in a couple of days, and I hate wasting food so I will be imbibing as much [lactose-free] milk as possible before tomorrow.

When I was younger and lacking any symptoms of lactose intolerance, I used to drink reduced and later fat-free white milk everyday for breakfast and dinner. I never grew sick of it, just like I can never grow sick of rice and freshly baked bread and other plain foods. I love being vanilla!

- I'm not really anywhere near the markers I subconsciously established for myself as goal posts for personal growth around the time I finished college, and part of me also questions whether those markers are actually markers in the first place because one of them was quite literally "figure out what you want to do for the next five years," which isn't really much of a goal in retrospect. I have trouble visioning that far ahead because I tend to care more about the immediate future in general, and from years of planning schedules that I never actually adhered to or finished can attest that I don't practically work well with long-term visions... unless it has to do with making small to-do lists, because I do tend to finish those... just years after the fact.

- One of my friends asked me how long I'll continue to let my company abuse me, and after having a decently productive work day today and reflecting on what I liked about my job, part of me just wondered, "is it really abuse if I enjoy it?" and the other part of me just realized how horrible that sounded after typing it. But honestly, I feel like I have it easy compared to other people I know, so I don't generally find reason to complain much beyond little nitpicky things like the fact that it took a year for me to finally get a sit-to-stand desk configuration approved by the ergonomics department.

(This stems from a company policy to avoid situations that they could become liable for, except that allowing my back and wrist pain to worsen from a lack of action on their part ought to be considered just as bad as accidentally making it worse from an action taken.)

- To summarize: help, I'm aging and I can't stop myself.