1. In the past year, from your birthday to your birthday, what are you proudest of?
Man, we are gonna need to get to a year where I don’t have to mull on what I’m proudest of, and something is big and obvious and good…
But… I did quit a job this year that wasn’t working well for me, in favor of another job. And while you could wonder if that’s really good now that the other job got cancelled and now I have no job… Ultimately, it wasn’t the best fit for me for various reasons, and it was good to not worry about “on paper it looks so good!” and say “this isn’t a right fit” and be willing to leave for something that suited me much better – to be definitive and give up something good (in many ways) for something better. 🙂 [Even if that better thing then did end haha, I have to hope there’s always something still better on the horizon still.]
(The original friend who starting asking me these questions in high school was talking about how he was impressed that I graduated from undergrad in August 2021, and will already have a grad degree by July 2020 (so technically less than a year from degree to degree, even though undergrad took forEVER, so we’re discounting all the time before the degree was granted haha).
And I do suppose there’s something to be said for that. That’s kind of cool. But, it’s hard to say it’s what I’m proudest of – which also leads me actually to my next question
2. The opposite of the first question, biggest regret, lesson, failure, etc.
I would say my biggest regret of the year is, I did a grad school program that specializes in writing for musical theater. And I had an idea for a musical I REALLY wanted to explore. It was complicated and nuanced, and I wasn’t sure if it was gonna work, but I wanted to try. And in my initial presentations, people didn’t fully ‘get it’. So, I switched to a MUCH simpler cookie-cutter idea because I didn’t want to spend all of grad school fighting. (And ultimately you want what you want to be commercial, so you want people to get it.)
All that being said, it definitely wasn’t impossible to do in a way that people would get it, and maybe even like it. And I regret not just pushing through and being like ‘this is what I’m writing. period,’ and not just forging ahead.
3. Biggest goal for the upcoming year?
I want to be the hottest I’ve ever been! haha I feel like I say this a lot, and that’s probably because it’s always true. And the more I creep into my thirties, the more I feel like I’m losing the window for that to even be possible. But it would be nice if I were able to accomplish it this year. And when I was telling the OG high school friend my answers, he wanted me to define what that would even mean to hit this goal (and I think that’s fair). So, I think most likely what I would need to be the hottest I’ve ever been:
– I’d like to keep getting back in shape. I want to at the very least be able to comfortably run a full marathon again, even if I don’t set a personal best time-wise.
– My flexibility took a little hit with the pandemic (and also recovering from my broken foot, and being in the cast and everything). So, just making sure that I can comfortably do the splits, at least (and if I can do other tricks, good on me).
– I have a pretty large chest. So, it’s heavy, and I’m getting older, and gravity works haha. So, I’d like to get a breast lift.
– And, as embarrassing as it is to admit, because I’ve had so many weight fluctuations in my life, I have extra skin on my thighs I just can’t get rid of. It doesn’t go back down even when I get all small and cute. So, I’d like to get a thigh lift to finally fix that.
I’m sure there are other things on top of that, that would be nice (perfect measurements, maybe fixing my one tooth that no one ever notices is like a millimeter or two crooked haha, etc. etc.) and maybe those will become goals for the following year, if I finish the ones above.
But for now, I would say those would either make me the hottest I’ve ever been, or very much well on my way to it!