i changed
This year, a lot changed for me and it changed me.
I notice it in what I eat and how foods I used to enjoy taste for me now. I had to abstain from a lot of foods for quite a while. Now even when I try them (mostly because of some sort of nostalgia, remembering how they used to taste for me or how much I used to like them) I don't like them anymore.
Would be one thing if it was things from my childhood I haven't had in two decades, or things that likely have changed recipe since then; but they're things I used to enjoy even a year ago or less. Most things are way too sweet. Some things are way too salty. There's an aftertaste to some foods I hadn't noticed until now. I don't enjoy how overpowering one singular taste is in many (usually processed) foods. The sugar overpowering every other ingredient, for example; I tasted a single bit of an oreo-like cereal my girlfriend tried out today and tasted none of the dark cocoa in the hull or the vanilla in the cream inside; it was just plain sweet, like a spoon full of sugar. Some of the food tastes too artificial to me now as well.
But it's a problem with fruits too. I once read an article that we breed fruits to be more and more sweet, especially because we tend to get used to the level of sweetness in other products like chocolate bars, iced tea or cereal. Seems like a race between the manufacturers adding more sugar and us getting more used to it? But anyway, I am not a fan of sour fruit either... I just want blueberries, mangoes or persimmons that don't taste as sweet. Sadly it isn't just dislike; a lot of it also makes me nauseous now, oops.
It's kinda weird, because food is so personal. We tend to tie a lot of our routines to food, we socialize around food, we connect times of our life to specific foods. Maybe we have a comfort food when we are sick or sad. So having a break from many foods and then returning to find out your palate changed can be confusing.. you kind of have to find a new food.. identity? Personality? Taste profile? You'll order your usual at a restaurant and now you don't even enjoy it. Others cook your favorite food for you but it isn't your favorite anymore. You're sad, but that ice cream you liked is now kind of disgusting.
It's a little sad to let go of all of that, but also exciting to go explore the new you.
Diagnoses, illness, feeling bad, emergencies, hospital stays... they all offer the potential to change priorities in life, think about all the stuff we still planned to do ~some day~ and the things we secretly long for but dismissed as too childish, unimportant, frivolous, expensive..
For me, it made me take my future plans to move to another city more seriously. I asked more for what I wanted and was willing to fight more for it. I was more seriously debating whether to fulfill a bucket list type thing of mine (a neon green buzzcut). I started feeling differently about my hobbies, projects and free time now (1 2 3).
My career plans changed and my attitude towards my degree did as well. A lot of it has to do with the reliability, accommodations, benefits and home office offered at my current work place in the public sector versus a new employer in the private sector, as well as taking into account periodic bouts of illness and emergencies, lower energy, and needing to avoid stress. It's now less about grind, high workload and being super ambitious, and more about gratitude for where I am at, being realistic about my limits, and self care. I feel more protective of my time and mental real estate now because time where I feel healthy, energized, pain-free and focused has been rare this year and never felt like it was lasting long enough.
I am finally taking the hobbies I do wanna focus on more seriously now. I'm willing to invest more time and money into them and persist throughout struggles. Sewing is intimidating to me and I am easily overwhelmed because I am aphantasic and have dyscalculia; drawing the shapes out on the fabric in the correct measurements and understanding how the pieces all go together and what has to be sewn on inside out and what doesn't is a pain for someone like me. I cannot see it mentally, I cannot rotate things in my mind and I frequently calculate things wrong. So far I've done all of my sewing projects without a template or pattern, so that made it even harder (but that will change soon, because I have two patterns I wanna use). I often looked at things I wanted to sew for myself, but dismissed it because I was scared of the skill and effort required. Now I am willing to just try and see what happens. I saw a cute jacket in a game that I wanted to make and adapt a little, and I've started planning it all out on paper and decided what fabric I wanna use. I finally want to commit to my plans to get more into techwear and designing my own clothes with that style in mind.
I also feel like I outgrew the look of this blog. I put a lot of effort into it when I started it and I still like the blinking cursor animation, but the entire design doesn't fit the themes or me anymore. It was nice for when it was just supposed to be a blog about tech projects and learning some programming, but the content and plans changed. I don't know how I will redesign it yet; still thinking about how I want it to look. I may even redesign my website (but keep the terminal), but I am also a little hesitant about doing away with graphics I spent so long creating.