2020 Update & Goals

2019 was one of, if not the hardest year of my life.

2019 was, without a doubt, the most transformative year of my life, and in some way or another, many of the challenges and changes that occurred over those 365 days have carried on into 2020.

That being said, when I first found Vocal, I wasn't sure how I wanted to approach using it. I was torn between using Vocal to write short stories, to journal, to express my thoughts and feelings about things I am passionate about, to share my poetry, etc.

Truth be told, I did a really awful job of using it for ANY of those things listed above. Part of the reason I feel like I failed to present anything that exists in my brain in text is that, yeah, like I said, 2019 was one of the hardest, most transformative years of my life, and everything I faced ended up getting in the way of my creative pursuits.

I'll admit, I'm kind of notorious for starting things and having big dreams and ideas, and then never fully committing or following through on them. There are a couple of reasons I think I do this, and the biggest one is probably that I am an adult suffering with ADHD.

Actually, let's back that up a bit.

When I say "suffering," I suppose that's a bit inaccurate. However, in the context of failing to fulfill my own potential and rarely finishing anything that I start, it's definitely something I "suffer" from. Although, I must admit, there are many things about living with ADHD that I am grateful for, so I don't particularly want to make it sound like this is something that I am plagued with dealing with forever and that it makes existence unbearable.

Okay, anyways, back to what I was saying about my lost dreams and loose-end ideas:

While a big reason I experience this regularly IS that I am an adult with ADHD, I think that another really big factor is that I've gone most of my life being quite fearful of showing the world who I am as a person. Very few people that meet me ever get to know who I am, and this isn't anyone else's fault as much as it's mine, and up until recently actually, I have been pretty content projecting the responsibility of getting to know me for who I really am onto others. The people who know me inside and out have put in a ton of effort to get to know me, and they've all created a comfortable, accepting space for me to be myself, making it possible to have genuine interactions back-and-forth. Unfortunately, outside of those relationships, I am extremely emotionally reserved.

As a very logical, analytical person, I find it easy to shut my emotions off when interacting with most people, and I usually default to fact-centred or goal-oriented conversations. In this context, goal-oriented means that the conversation I am having has a specific purpose, and when we reach that purpose, there is no need to continue conversation further.

Now, I'm not the type of person to set New Year's resolutions... I never have set them and I probably never will, but for the first time in nearly a decade, I had a substantial amount of time off from work (and any other responsibilities) over Christmas, and I spent a lot of that time self-reflecting on the past year and all of the changes I've gone through. This isn't a New Year's resolution because this isn't something that I'm starting from zero and intend on working my way up from the bottom; this is something that has been going on for MONTHS now already, and after much self-reflection over the holidays, I feel is something that I should put more intentional focus on.

So... what is "this?"

"This," in this context, is genuine, authentic self-expression.

Since 2017, I have been gradually figuring out who I am, what I want, and what it looks like for me to express myself authentically. 2019 was the most instrumental year in the evolution of myself, and let me tell you, it has NOT been easy just "being myself" in a more outward way. However, at this point, I feel that I have a better grasp on what it looks like for me to be myself, and I think that it's time that I really push myself and pour myself into the things that I have always enjoyed doing, but in a more authentic way and without shame or self-doubt.

That being said, my goal for my presence on Vocal in 2020 is simply this: I will be putting forth a genuine effort to post regularly. In terms of content, I would love to make promises or set goals around the subject matter that I look forward to creating on this platform, but I don't think I am ready to make that kind of committment yet. I may develop a niche on this platform, but I think that a more realistic goal for myself will be to focus on using Vocal as a platform to discover what authentic self-expression looks like for me, particularly in my writing.

That's that on that.

I look forward to creating more on Vocal (and elsewhere!), and sharing bits and pieces of myself with the world as I become more comfortable and confident in who I am and what I have to offer.