New. Year. Thoughts.

Time for the all-encompassing, reflective blog entry that speaks of lessons learned, progress made, goals reassessed in my time at home over these past two weeks. To a large extent, I was hit with a lot of things at once - returning to L.A. for the first time in six months (nay, almost 6.5?), going home for the holidays, ringing in a new year (and decade) and ultimately, figuring out what type of relationships I was establishing with my loved ones now that I have the experience of this tricky thing called "distance."

This wasn't quite the same as London, simply because that had a timeline, an impending deadline so that it was permissible for me to fall out of contact or let things ride out their course overseas because I would be back in the States in a countable number of days.

But because I've now moved to New York and made this my primary residence, I can't rightly just assume that it's okay to let relationships fall through. I realized this break just how terrible I am at keeping in touch with people - and that it's inconsiderate on my part to just hope that other people will make an effort to touch base.

Being busy isn't an excuse, and my not getting back to emails, calls and texts asap translates as exactly that: an excuse. Not only do I need to organize my life - I need to maintain it. I let so much maintenance of my living fall to the wayside in favor of just getting by day-to-day. This is the easier route. And I know that nothing that's worth it is ever easy, so why not act accordingly?

Something else I've rememberd over break (thank you, psych classes...):

In the short-run, people regret the things they've done.

In the long-run, people forget about the stupid things they've done and regret the things they haven't done.

The reasoning makes sense - you realize in retrospect that you learn from dumb mistakes. You move on and endure the consequences. But when you don't do something, you'll only learn one lesson, which is that if an opportunity arises next time, you grab it. You'll always wonder "What if?" otherwise, and that's just exhausting.

Being home really affirmed how blessed I am, to be in NYC doing what I love at such a young age (yes, I'll still call it young...); I really can't live life with excuses. Now is the time to hustle, to learn to live life through the ups and downs and really explore all your options. The 20s is the time for roadtrips, heartbreaks, marathons, new jobs, bad jobs, too many commitments, no commitments, solitude, too many people, new ventures. Settling into your life - well, you can always do that later.

This isn't to say that life needs to be lived recklessly, but there are definitely things that you can get away with when you're younger. Like dreaming. Life is short. One of my mom's dear high school friends passed away just a week ago from a 15+ year battle with cancer. She was just past 50. A month ago, my great-aunt passed away after five years of being extremely sick. She was 80. A family friend recently had three heart attacks and died suddenly on Christmas Eve. He was in his 40s. Not to be morbid, but life. is. short.

And they all lived good lives, but I wonder about the different phases that they've each experienced in life, the multiple lives they've touched, the tasks they've left unfinished. At the end of the day, isn't quality of life most important, since quantity is never guaranteed?

Life never has to get stagnant. It can, of course, all too easily, but it doesn't have to. The system. Comfort. Security. These are the things we're always taught to abide by. Living a life by a certain structure - people who deviate don't exactly fall into the categories of success we have set before us. Some rare few make the crossover, blazing their own trail and accumulating a following enough so that they end up leading the pack.

But these are the exceptions. Because while schooling teaches us to think independently, creatively (well, depending on what field you were schooled in), it also focuses on teaching us about guidelines.

Organized chaos.

Writing with lines. Art inside a structure. Jobs that follow a preset path. And while I know it would be naive of me to lambast these standards and call them foolish - that would be ignorant, for that kind of structure and system lets society function properly - while I realize this, I also know that the reason why fantasy and rebels and criminals and celebrities fascinate us so much is because they have so much abandon.

Artists, musicians, risk-takers, they live the life that we all want. They have the kind of freedom I'm sure most of us simultaneously envy and fear. But why does there have to be a separate them and us? Why can't we live these lives? Take the best of the worlds that we know and really have a hand in shaping our existence?

I like labels. On food condiments, hair products, items that I purchase. Mostly becuase this gives me a way to judge the standards of the product and item. I know a brand like Sara Lee will have quality bread. I know the store-brand bread might be just as good but will cost me less. I know about brand loyalty.

But I also know that if you remove all labels and preconceptions, these items can taste identical. So why not apply this to people? Why not stop trying to fit the mold of what it means to be an engineer, a law student, a journalist, a guy, a girl? Why not try to create an identity and avoid the labels altogether? It's scary because there are no means of comparison that way; no means, that is, except to yourself. But sometimes this is the best way.

By doing something so dramatic, you're willingly isolating yourself so you can self-examine, have no one to live up to, no expectations to meet but your own. This is what New York has done for me. It's stripped me of my labels, allowed me to figure out my own constitution, my strengths and weaknesses and how to deal with them.

Going home this holiday season showed me that life is too short and too precious to wait on the sidelines, to keep a distance between them and us. I can honestly say that I'm growing and changing every day that I write more, read more, talk more, observe more. And tradition and structure are great and all - you can't break the rules until you know them - but they're not the only way to form your existence.

Life is for living, and part of the game is figuring out on whose terms you're playing.