By the time you’re reading this it’ll be a new year! Right now it’s almost five o’clock and I’ve stolen a little bit of time away from tidying to write my last journal entry of 2022.

Looking back on this year, I think I’ve got to give myself some credit for how much I’ve accomplished. My natural instinct is to say “oh, I haven’t done much at all this year” and to wave everything away. For starters, I’ve strengthened quite a few of my relationships! Joining a dance team brought me a lot closer to my dance class pals while simultaneously helping push me outside of my comfort zone. The time I spent practicing with my dance team over the summer is something I’ll never forget and I hope I get to do it again next year, too!

Speaking of comfort zones, this year I did something that really scared me: I hired someone to help with my candle business. Eek! That was a big step, and although it didn’t pan out the way I had hoped, I certainly grew a lot from that experience. And even though I ultimately made the decision to wind down my business, I don’t think I could have come to that conclusion if I hadn’t tried expanding first. In the end, I decided I wanted to go a different route but I am still proud of what I was able to accomplish.

Some highlights of this year have to be the trip to Vegas to see BTS and getting to meet so many of my BTS group chat pals! Also the trip up to the Lake District for Alex’s mum’s birthday was really memorable and I still think about those sunny days quite often. Another highlight would have to be performing at Pride with my dance team, and also doing my first solo dance in dance class.

And how could I forget my photo journal? This year’s photo journal was a little difficult for me in terms of overall motivation and there were certainly times when I just didn’t feel like snapping a picture or even writing anything down. I got a little lazy with writing and posting on each day, but I’m glad I still managed to snap at least one picture every day. I’m looking forward to taking a break from the “grind” of this daily photo journal.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what’s next for me in 2023 because although I really benefit from journaling daily and I also love photography, I’m not so sure if I want to continue a daily photo journal in the new year. I just need a break, I think. This photo journal has always been just for my benefit, but over time as more people began to check it out I couldn’t help always being aware that others are most likely reading my journal, too. Regardless, I’m still very open and honest about what’s going on in my life but sometimes I do feel a little bit of a self-sanctioned burden to be a certain version of myself in my photo journal entries. There are plenty of times where I don’t photograph anything particularly interesting and I don’t have anything I want to write publicly. I’ve even turned the comments off on all of the posts on my journal in order to preserve this “safe space” I’ve made for myself.

In the future I could definitely see myself taking daily photos and keeping a weekly journal. I’m not sure if I want to start that in 2023, but it’s something I’d like to do sometime! In the meantime, I’ve made a new instagram that will be dedicated to my photo journal (past, present, future) and Alex has been kind enough to help me code something that will share the image from each day in chronological order. Fingers crossed we’ll get it working from January 1st, 2023!! It’ll start with my 2016 photo journal and then move on to 2022 so I’m looking forward to reminiscing over that.

So I think I’m going to wrap up this final journal entry here! As I have done in the past between year-long photo journal projects, you may see a few journal entries from me here and there, but that’s going to be it for 2022. Now let’s ring in the new year!