Goodnight, 2019
Sunsets are about slowing down, accepting what occurred during the day, and feeling gratitude for the good and bad and in-between, all of which will never happen again. So it’s no wonder that on this last day of the year, my thoughts are of sunsets and closing of chapters.
2019 was a big year. My partner and I celebrated our marriage with my family Chinese style - a banquet dinner and lots of red, the fortuitous color. Then we found out that we were going to have a “golden pig” later in the year and I surfed as much as I could until about 21 weeks. Auberon joined us in this world in October. We got through the first 6 weeks of no sleep and he is now thankfully sleeping several hours for the first stretch.
Art business-wise, I rebranded with my new surname and a new website. Artwork I submitted got selected as the t-shirt design for HBL’s Haleiwa Metric Century Ride (I only rode 50 km this time, being 4 months pregnant). We participated in our first markets/street fairs in our 10x10-foot pop up tent. I taught my first workshop. The owner of a small retail shop, La Muse Hawaii, agreed to sell my prints at her boutique. I painted 100 paintings in 100 days while working a full-time day job. I sold over 100 original paintings and dozens of prints. Nuts.
2019 has been joyful, demanding, unexpected, and all of those other adjectives that describe a life full of meaning. The end of this year and this decade marks the end of carefree youth and the beginning of motherhood, a focus on family and building of a new career - my side hustle becomes my part-time job. A new adventure awaits and I am not embarking on it alone… I couldn’t, wouldn’t be able to.
I’m so grateful to everyone that has been a part of my journey, big and small. On my way to becoming more myself, I hope I can encourage people to be more themselves - to identify their dreams and take the path with a heart, as I am trying to. I can’t even imagine what’s in store for 2020 and the new decade, but I’m sure there will be surprises. The new art I will create, the new or deeper relationships I will develop, the love we will experience as a family, the waves I will surf or fall off of - it’s all ahead.
I’ll end with words wiser than my own, brought to my attention by @zenpencil’s awesome illustration.
“Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive. Ambition is only understood if it’s to rise to the top of some imaginary ladder of success. Someone who takes an undemanding job because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities is considered a flake. A person who abandons a career in order to stay home and raise children is considered not to be living up to his potential — as if a job title and salary are the sole measure of human worth. You’ll be told in a hundred ways, some subtle and some not, to keep climbing, and never be satisfied with where you are, who you are, and what you’re doing. There are a million ways to sell yourself out, and I guarantee you’ll hear about them. To invent your own life’s meaning is not easy, but it’s still allowed, and I think you’ll be happier for the trouble.”