I am 25 and a half years old now, and here are ten takeaways for me in my year 2022. Above is an image from my parent's balcony in Bangkok.

1. Grief always comes out of nowhere.

This year my family and I saw many different kinds of losses, from my childhood dog to a family friend in a car crash, to the war in Ukraine and permanent changes in health for family members, to friendships whittling away, to personal heartbreak and getting injured and sick at the worst times. Life is always full of grief.

2. Blindfolds are not bandages.

I think as a kid I was quite avoidant, and this was masked as strength. Running away from pain has been an unconscious act, and something that used to make me feel like perhaps I was good at dealing with emotional pains. It's not until now that I realized what I've been doing, and that I need to actually sit and process reality. The truth is blindfolds can take many forms, from substances to falling in love(which really is a drug!), to simply avoiding communication and isolation.

During a recent meditation, I had a vision of my heart, made of clay. It appeared in front of me, in the midst of hardening.Running jagged, down the center, there was a crack. It has been growing for years, a cliff I’ve feared to peer into, I’ve skirted away from the edge. Every time I sensed an opening I rubbed wet clay over the surface, one after anotherI pressed wet clay taken from other people’s hearts, outsourced my confidence, afraid of being found out as broken, I looked for wholeness elsewhere. Left cracks in others.

But now she appears in front of me, demands me to look at the lines, to stare at grief, to see it's shape, to map this geography, to see that it is alive. I see now that this is a valley in my heart, she is waiting for me to go inside, to experience the vast emptiness, to then go create between the space, to fill, to nourish, to pour into it what has been gone, to transform emptiness, abandonment, space. I see now that it is not this crack that shapes me, but what I choose to fill it with that will make me who I am.

2023 is time to fill my heart like Kitsukori, to dive into grief, and allow the grief to heal by letting it pass.

"樂未畢也，哀又繼之。哀樂之來，吾不能禦，其去弗能止。悲夫！世人直為物逆旅耳！" 莊子

"Joy is not over yet, and grief already arrives. Grief and happiness' coming, cannot be controlled, nor can their going be stopped. What sorrow! Us mortals drift between." (own translation) Zhuang zi.

But the truth is, there is a happiness that came with being overcome with grief. I realized that this too is an emotion that is part of all of the human experiences.

3. I make mistakes, and everyone does too.

This year I made many glaring mistakes. I think when I was younger every mistake felt like a hot burning unforgivable sting, and I would avoid owning up to it or perhaps convince myself that the mistake wasn't really a mistake or something like that. I rarely thought of seriously considering anything a mistake to myself.

But now it's clear to me that this odd perfectionism is another kind of avoidance, an avoidance of the reality that everyone makes mistakes and to make space for it, even in just myself, is to allow myself to grow.

I decided I wanted to apply to phD's in the fall and happily began this journey telling my professor who I dearly trusted who told me that he did think that Comparative Literature seemed fitting for me after he told me every other suggestion -- Philosophy, psychology -- was completely not suitable. I was thrilled and confidently went about preparing my writing sample and statement. I received a lot of encouragement from all sorts of people, and many edited my works but I did not consult more people on what the process is. In my isolation I was confident and excited about the whole thing.

The truth is I really didn't know what a phD is. Four days before two of my applications were due I went to a party in New York with my friend and told some friends about how I was doing this application. They asked me "what is your proposal?" to which I was stunned. I thought I just had to write about my interests and who I wanted to work with, luckily this sweet friend told me about what it should be and so I proceeded to spend the next four days in a stressful daze suddenly realizing that I had not given this serious enough thought for the past few months. Doubt crept up with its spiked head, but I did end up submitting it.

Another mistake was 3 days after I submitted the application I hosted a Little Dragons event, and the mayor of Swarthmore came. I completely forgot to introduce him to everyone! What an embarrassment! Now I know, and I will just improve from here!

4. Plans are just ideas.

And ideas are just fluid mysteries that maybe come from the stars, some electricity in our brains, or ancestral whisperings. Ideas are powerful. Pay attention to your thoughts and what guides them.