Leaving 2020 with a New Perspective on My Life

This year is coming to a close and so many things have happened that uprooted everyone, including myself, from the “normalcy” of our lives. 2020, in a way, has given us perfect vision (pun intended) on the numerous issues that plague our society and divide us even further than we already have been.

For me personally, it was the start of a very low point in my life when I felt that I wasn’t accomplishing anything and had no personal goals in life due to financial hardship, an overbearing, controlling parent and depression. All of this came to a head in May and I was promptly given the boot after not only getting temporarily laid off at both jobs, but looking for a place to live after refusing to move with the other family members (for the umpteenth time) to another location. Luckily, I had managed to save up a small emergency fund, but it was still rough.

After living in rented rooms and experiencing so many aging adults that were angry and passive aggressive due to them feeling stuck in life, I decided to make several changes and improve my life for the better because I didn’t want to end up bitter like the people I had the misfortune of dealing with. I knew change wasn’t going to happen overnight, but small steps could lead to a different future for me.

I poured my woes, anger, thoughts and the like into the pages of my journals, dived back into drawing and photographing, and I started making a list of any accomplishments I made for each month of this year. I also started focusing more on the little pleasures of life rather than extravagance and found that something as simple as visiting the beach or a secluded park gave me the peace and joy I wanted, even for a short period. It was amazing!

Since then, looking back at everything, I’m very proud of what I’ve managed to achieve despite what I’ve been through. Some of my accomplishments were the following:

• started and finished eight drawings with graphite pencils
• developed my first batch of color film for the first time
• paid off three credit cards and a personal loan
• visited three places in Florida via road trips (Palatka, Macclenny and Green Cove Springs)
• adding a Food Handler certification to my resume
• wrote more posts for my blog than any other year
• quit one of my jobs, started a new one and got a promotion at my main job

I’ve developed a new perspective on what I truly want from my life and am in the process of creating some vision boards to help visualize what my dreams, goals and aspirations are. I’m still going to keep writing down all of my achievements for each month in 2021, but I’ve nearly changed inside and out and now have a clear goal in mind:

To move to a place near the natural environment and live in peace while celebrating the little pleasures in life.

Oh, and continue to follow my creative soul and keep writing and making fine art and photos for sharing and preserving amazing moments from my life.

Happy New Year to everyone and here’s to starting over fresh after what 2020 has given you.