Well, this seemed like a good way to officially launch the blog! Today I wanted to take some time to look back at the disaster that was the year 2020, and to look forward toward 2021 and think about my hopes and goals for the new year!


    For the last couple of years I have done video entries at the start/end of every year, just to reflect and look back on the previous year and to document my hopes for the next year. I honestly really almost didn't do one this year! I was actually setting up to film an entirely different video when I changed my mind again and told myself "No. I've been doing this every year and even if this year is bad I still need to do it." and I think that was a really good lesson for me. As hard as this year has been for me and for many other people, we can't just ignore it and pretend it didn't happen. We need to face this year head on. We need to face the problems that came at us, we need to face the things that hurt us, and we also need to face the ways that we were able to prosper during this time. Even if they are small successes, they are STILL a success and still something to be proud of! Even if all you were able to do one day was shower or feed yourself, that is still something to be proud of right now. Of course we all had different goals and dreams for 2020, we all had things we wanted to do with our lives this year that we didn't get to do. But sometimes we can't control the world and the horrific things that happen in it. Sometimes we can't control the way that the world knocks us down. But we can still celebrate the ways we have fought through those hard times.


    At the end of 2019 I had a few big goals for the new year. Looking back on them now, I was actually really surprised by how many of them I was able to get done! I had some cosplay goals that I really wanted to do, and many of them I was actually able to get done! This included a ton of Fire Emblem cosplays that I wanted to do, some new Hatsune Miku cosplays, and Yuna from Final Fantasy X! There definitely was a lot more on that list that I wanted to do and wasn't able to, but I'm still happy I was able to do so many of them! Another goal that I had at the start of 2020 that I was actually able to do was that I wanted to do some more gaming content on my YouTube channel! It may have taken most of the year, but I finally started doing that! I started doing a few streams on my YouTube during the fall and into the winter, and I've also done some gaming videos that were separate from streams too! I have had a lot of fun with those!! I really love getting to talk with people while I'm playing games and hearing everyone else's thoughts on the games and just getting to talk about some of my favorite fandoms and incorporating them into my content more!


    Now of course there were many goals that I did not get to accomplish this year. I really wanted to work with more photographers this year. I love collaborating with other creatives and seeing the ways that different minds can be put together and make something amazing with different perspectives. While I did get to work with a few new photographers at Katsucon this year, I was not able to do any photoshoots with photographers at all really after that. However I did use this opportunity to try and improve my own self shooting skills and learn more about photography and photo editing myself. It didn't get me what I wanted out of shooting with other people, but I still think it was good for me to work on those skills myself! It also gave me a better understanding of photography that I think will help when I am able to work with photographers again! I also wanted to attend more conventions and try my hand at running a panel or event at a convention. Clearly this didn't happen considering I only went to one convention at the very start of this year, but I haven't given up on this goal! In my mind, these goals have just transferred to the future, to whenever it is safe for us to go to conventions again in the future. Someday I will go to more conventions and someday I will try running a panel or event at a convention. Even if it doesn't happen this year, it is still a big goal I have for myself in the future!

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    I always have said that the reason a lot of people hate new years resolutions is because people give themselves incredibly unrealistic goals that they will never meet. Goals that they will fail in the first month of the year and then give up. You cannot turn your life around in one swift movement. You can't make your goal "I want to exercise and eat healthy every single day of the new year" because there is no way you are going to do that every single day unless you already have been doing it every single day. You are just setting yourself up for failure if you do that. If you want to make sure you exercise more and eat healthier in the new year, you can still have the same goal! Just make it more realistic! Instead of trying to do it every single day, just say that you want to do it more! Or if you are someone that needs more regimented schedules in your life, try something a little easier that you can build up if you want more in the future. maybe say you want to make sure you work out once a week or a certain amount of times per each month. That way if you get to a place where you physically and mentally can do more, you can always raise the amount you're doing! But you also aren't dooming yourself to failure from the start.


    While that is still my general advice when it comes to new years resolutions, I think that this year we need to be even more easy on ourselves. At the start of the pandemic and quarantine I saw so many people saying that they were going to do all of these crazy huge creative projects with all the free time they would have from staying at home. What a lot of people didn't consider was the physical and mental toll that the pandemic would take on us. A lot of people quickly lost their creativity, and lost their inspirations. It became so easy to just stay at home and do nothing. I can't tell you how many times this year I just wore pajamas for days at a time, not even bothering to get dressed. Because why does it matter? Why does it matter to get dressed if I'm just going to be sitting at home in my house alone anyways? But that itself can take a huge toll on you mentally.


    Going into 2021, my goals are a lot more... real? Just real life things that I want or need or am going to try to work toward. I honestly feel like that is a better way to go this year anyways. This year is not the year to make huge life changing goals or to turn your entire existence around and become a super buff fit millionaire with all the things. This year is a year to recover. It is a year to take care of ourselves. To recognize our personal needs, and to take the steps we need to make our lives more fulfilling and happier.


    For one, I have recognized my own struggles with communication and especially with reaching out to my friends. With the isolation that 2020 has brought, I have especially struggled with talking to my friends. I know they are there for me, I know I could easily send a message to any of my friends whenever I want to talk about stuff, but it's been really hard this year. Even when other people message me, I tend to take hours and sometimes days to respond at all. Just social communication has been such a struggle and I would really like to work on this. Not just for myself but for other people too. I feel like I'm so rude or a bad friend when I take so long to respond to people, and I want my friends to know that I truly value them and care about them and I want them to know how much it means to me whenever they message me or check in on me. I know I'm really being a hermit here, and I don't want to be. And branching off of that and entirely dependent on the state of the world and how things go, if it's possible I would really love to see my friends and family again. I have been in my home since March of 2020, only leaving a handful of times for doctors appointments, so I REALLY miss the people in my life so much.


    When it comes to cosplay goals, my biggest goal is to do more crafting! I know I wanted to do some last year, but basically all of my inspiration and motivation was killed by the pandemic. Right now I am currently starting on two big cosplay crafting projects that I already have most of the materials for, and I'm really excited to get started on them! I will be making videos and blog posts to go along with those in the future as I work on them more too, so you can look forward to seeing some of that on here! If you wanted a hint about what I'm crafting, both of the current projects have to do with World of Warcraft!


   Another goal I have for 2021 is to read more! I love reading and I always have. When I was younger I used to read for hours on end, I would go through books in a day, and just never stop. Somehow over the years I have really fallen out of it though and I feel like I rarely read at all now unless I have to. I really would like to change that and incorporate reading into my life more as I go forward. Right now I am starting with reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which I've never actually read through fully before, and I also just picked up Yaya Han's World of Cosplay which I can NOT put down! Yaya's book has been making me SO emotional as I think about how much I miss cosplaying with friends and going to conventions. I would highly suggest for anyone who is a cosplayer or is interested in cosplay to pick up this book and read it!


    In general I just would really like to do a better job at taking care of myself. I think a lot of people have struggled with basic human needs in 2020, and I am no different. A step I have taken to try and help myself in that regard is kind of just a step up from something I had already been doing for the majority of 2020. Throughout this year I have been using a notebook to do daily To Do lists to keep track of everything, but my notebook was super messy and unorganized, but still incredibly helpful for me to make sure I kept track of things and kept up with deadlines or work I had going on. I have already upgraded my little notebook to a nice new bullet journal for 2021! I have tried bullet journaling in the past, and I always got too hung up on trying to make it look pretty. I would set up the journal for one month and use it for that month and then never get around to setting it up again for the next month. So for my 2021 journal I tried to set it up a lot ahead of time, and I already have the first three months all outlined on there and I can fill out my to do lists and charts as I get to them. This is already a tactic that I know is super helpful for me when it comes to my ADHD and focus and keeping track of things, and I already see it as something that will make a big difference and help me a lot as I go forward! I was thinking of maybe doing some blog posts on here about my bullet journal and the types of page outlines and designs that are most helpful for me, definitely let me know if that's something any of you would be interested in seeing on here!


    The final goal that I had outlined for mt 2021 goals was to love myself. I've struggled a LOT this year with some insecurities, especially after a few particular hardships. I have recognized that I have a much harder time right now talking about my interests, which is something I really don't like. I have struggled in the past with bullying and being made fun of for being the "weird kid" or having weird interests like anime and video games when I was younger, and there have been a few times this year that those kind of feelings have been brought back up. I want to remind myself that it is okay for me to dive deep into my interests, to explore my inspirations, to talk about them and celebrate them. Even if none of my friends are really into the same things as me, that's kind of the joy of the internet. You can always find someone who has similar interests to you online, and you can find people that want to talk about the same fandoms or interests that you want to talk about. As part of this goal, I want to try and make videos and blog posts just for talking about my interests. It doesn't matter if those things don't get good views or likes or "internet metric" type of things- they are for ME to celebrate myself and the things that make me happy. 


    Really in conclusion, I think myself and a lot of other people should take 2021 as a year of recovery and of self care. We need to be patient and forgiving with ourselves, and to an extent those around us too. So many people are struggling through this time, and I think EVERYONE wants it to be different. We can make that happen as long as we all work together and each do our parts. Wear your masks, stay at home, be safe, and soon enough a vaccine will be available for all of us, and with time we can work on rebuilding our lives in new and better ways together.


- Aesthel