The Jordan Year
Another COVID year in the books. The year’s review.
What a fucked year.
It had its ups and downs. I’d say mostly downs since there’s still a pandemic going on. So overall a mixed year. I’d say a 4/10.
The bad.
Lets first talk about the downs. School’s been a downer. Honestly this degree has been one of the biggest sources of stress and depression for me. At this point my motivation isn’t from actually wanting it, its more so just trying to get over it which is really a bad kind of motivation. I’m kinda just going with the flow, which is not good with academics. I used to be a bright eyed, change the world type student but something along the way made me change. I’m not meant to change the world through academics and science, I’m meant to change it in different ways. I’m not gonna be part of the engineering team that successfully makes it to Mars or commercializes space travel, I’m not going to become an astronaut (but that’s something I’ve always wanted to be so when an opportunity arises, I damn well am gonna take it). I’ve grounded my expectations to reality and well I think there were some positives to it. Look I love my degree, I enjoy Space engineering (though I somewhat wish I took mechanical instead), but in the end of it I was always meant to do shit with my hands. I’ve always been mechanically inclined and was better with labs rather than the theory. Some of the most fun I had in school are the hands-on labs. Anyways this is just a small rant about how down school has been really. I feel bogged down with all the projects and really, just theory in school. And to make it worse, everything’s online.
My personal relationships have also taken a dive this year… I’ve lost some friends along the year. More importantly, I’ve been a bad friend to a few. I could do a lot of mental gymnastics on why all this happened but honestly, I’ve been a bad friend this past (few) years. Something I lack, which is a deep rooted issue I’ve talked to my therapist about is my lack of communication/ communication skills. Sometimes I’m not fully honest or just don’t even express my full self. I keep my feelings bottled up. I never really thought much about this until recently. I would say my environment and family really is the reason for this. We don’t share much in my family, we lack talking about our feelings or intentions much. Yeah, we say we love each other and just that but damn, in the past 24 years, I had one emotional talk with both my parents and it was within the past year. I always have thought my lack of speaking up and communicating probably comes from my dad. A toughened military pilot, my dad rarely talks about his feelings or intentions. I have never seen him show much emotion often, or maybe I’m just not looking. The first I’ve seen him cry was when his dad (I think)died which was a couple years ago. I’ll be honest, to this day, I haven’t talked to my dad about it, and I’m not sure if that was his dad, step-dad or what. That’s how deep our not talking about shit goes in the family. I think though since our family is mostly adults now (18 or older) we’ve been a bit better about talking about feelings. I personally have a long ways to go about just being able to express myself. Hell, during the summer, there was a card game I was playing with friends, which said “most likely living a double life” and they unanimously said me. Some truth to that cause this side of me I don’t talk about much. I would say the amount I share now is probably the amount I shared with my ex when we dated. Really just the surface of things. It was one of the reason’s we broke up… Nonetheless, this bad skill is slowly making me lose friends I don’t want to lose. Making me sadder and making things worse.
A friend of mine essentially dropped me which I thought was gonna be the best man to my wedding. It fucking sucks losing a friend like that. I don’t know really why, or what caused it. All he said was, he “doesn’t think its the right time for us to be friends right now”. Mind you I’m going through therapy and a quarterlife crisis so losing him as a friend made things worse… But such is life and sometimes we lose friends along the way. I still hope for the day we can talk again. I wish that to anyone I feel I’ve lost along the way. Moving around a lot when I was younger it was easy to make friends but moving made me lose them too. Now that I’ve settled down here in Canada, I don’t want to lose anyone. This is something I need to work on because part of me losing friends I think is I disappear without a trace or just don’t check up on people, the pandemic kinda made that harder too.
Healthwise, I’m at the worst shape of my life. Minimal gym and exercise and terrible diet has made me sluggish. I even went on a small bout of an eating disorder whenever my depression and anxiety kicks in. This is easily something I can put on the good side for next year but time will tell on that. My parents went through some health scares this year and that’s something I’m very anxious about. I honestly want the best for them but I’m not at the point yet to help. I really wish I was just a bit richer man, all these anxieties issues can be fixed with that. Money can buy happiness and health, even though it really shouldn’t. But such a world we live in.
Pandemic, and capitalism. I think these speak for themselves in being shitty. Seeing the rich get richer and the poor get sicker are one of the biggest atrocities in the world right now. This is the change I want to make in the world, in the little time I have on it. When you think about it, even 2000 years, an average life is 80 years, and you only really do shit in life past 20 so you have 60 years to do something with it. That’s only 3% of the ratio of the past 2000 years. We are miniscule in terms of human history but we have to try to make a difference. Small action makes small differences, small collective action makes change.
The good.
I got a job. Somewhat have a steady career I can follow now. Mind you two years ago I had no fucking idea what I wanted in life, or what I wanted to do with my degree. I thought I was just gonna graduate then get a job. Boy was I wrong. The job market is A) tough as shit and B) highly competivle and C) very selective in some candidates. Some jobs look for STUDENTs with like 2 years experience and shit for entry-level jobs… ENTRY-LEVEL! That shit so so unhinged. In my opinion, all jobs should require no prior experience, and all education and training should be provided by the corporation/company. Like literally all of it. If you want to work as a lawyer, law firms should hire you out of highschool, train and educate you themselves. Anyways I got a job in a manufacturing and castings plant in Brampton. A job I got through Sheridan actually. Sheridan was a bet I made on myself that panned out fantastically. A year ago I wouldn’t have thought I’d have a decent career path. Funny enough, an Instagram ad made me make this choice. Had I not seen that ad, I’d still be at McDonalds, grinding away with shitty pay.
I’ve slowly been finding myself as a person too… If you as the reader didn’t know already I was in a 4 year relationship with a girl I thought I was going to marry. Mind you I’m only 24 (just turned), so thats 1/6th of my life. It ended terribly and for a time there I was lost. I didn’t really know who or what I was. I kinda had my entire personality based around a person. Well it felt like it, and I honestly don’t , I put too much stock on what others think of me and honestly, it fucked with my mental health. Now thankfully I’m doing better. I kinda found a niche for who I am, what I’m capable of, and what I’m horrible at and what I need to work on. Therapy has helped a lot with things for me. Fortunately I was smart enough to actually take that step. My mental health really was deteriorating and the pandemic sped that process up. This might seem like a bad thing but to be honest, being able to finally find outlets to express my thoughts and myself, even if probably no-one is listening is satisfying. My therapist, is a wonderful lady. I just know the first time talking to her, she’d understand me and I’m lucky to have found her. This entire saga with my mental health is greatly needed.
No COVID. Surprisingly, after all the going out downtown, up north, with friends, even to the US I haven’t gotten sick of COVID. Guess I’m just built different. Today though I received a text from my boss that he recently got COVID from his daughter-in-law during christmas festivities. Such a shitty thing to happen at a time. I bet this happened to a lot of families through out the holiday season and it’s unfortunate. I think I should be okay, but part of me thinks I’m asymptomatic and I’m spreading it around… I should get tested soon.
New hobbies. I picked up a lot of things to do now to somewhat create a new person in myself. This entire writing thing is something I started a long time ago but just never felt comfortable sharing. I’m kinda glad I did cause most people only really know me throught my posts. When they read this shit they’d be fucking so shook at what the fuck is going on LOL. I kinda treat this like my twitter account. There I post more unhinged shit but here at least it more coherent.
New friends. I’ve developed friendships. I’m glad to have found someone I can call a friend and that understands me. One of those friends is Robbie. Now Robbie and I have been friends for a while, during our time in school he was mostly focused on his academics. And his personality was kinda dumbed down to “smartest person in the room”… People don’t really know the deeper him, and I’m glad I met that person. Robbie and I are more similar than what people might think, I’m dumber than rocks but in terms of emotional, personality, etc. we’re actually made to be best friends. He drew me this for my birthday :) While I dont necessarily do much EDM machining or what this looks like is a router CNC. I appreciate the detail :) So while I did lose a friend that I thought would be my best man, I found another one.
Same old humor. I feel like I accomplished something great when I realize I’m still the funniest person I know. After therapy and some of the worst times of my life. I’m glad I can still make people laugh, whether in person or the internet. As an avid poster. I thought my comedy would dake a hit after therapy. I’m glad it didn’t.
In terms of love “interests”. Look all I gotta say with this is that while it has been a pretty shitty year. I’ve been getting myself out there. After Serena, I was sure I was never going to find something like her again. I was wrong. I have experimented a bit on the game and let me tell you, thank God I’m funny and hot cause I would probably die alone if I wasn’t. Albeit I know I’m not emotionally ready for anything right now, it’s nice to know I’m fucking hot and wanted LMAO. I still got game not gonna lie.
All in all, terrible year tbh. 2022 doesn’t look any better either unfortunately. This new Megatron variant is kicking everyone’s ass and while it’s slightly less severe. It still sucks for people who get it. Hopefully the whole year isn’t too bad though.
Anyways till next time.
JA.
