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Slightly better. Now I'll reflect on 2025...
3 months ago
General
Went to get some strong antibiotic cream prescribed for my mosquito bite. It's already doing slightly better after resting most of the day, and I'm sure it'll continue getting better. "Leaving mosquito bites untouched" is going to be a hard New Year's resolution to stick with, but I'd prefer to avoid a nasty infection again if I possibly can. 😂
Anywho... 2025. It wasn't bad, but it could have been a lot better. Finally getting married to my husband after 8 years, trying new seasonal foods during winter, going to see a big-top circus for the first time ever, and going to visit Gramado were the greatest parts of 2025. There's not much else that was of note since we had to wait 6 or 7 months for my immigration process to complete, and most of that was just waiting on various required documents and background check stuff from the FBI to be processed and sent (though some of it was also waiting on FedEx and their unreliable service, but that's a whole other bag of worms).
2025 taught me to start standing up for myself and upholding boundaries instead of being a people-pleaser and a floor mat for people to walk all over. In some cases, it's easy, and in other cases (ie. regarding certain family members back in the US), it's harder. I want to be close with some people, especially in my family, but when they have the energy of a dead car battery and start dumping their problems on me and expecting me to take sides, I've got to choose self-respect and my overall mental and emotional health. I can't keep being someone else's figurative battery charger and allowing my energy to be zapped away, or else I just end up further depressed, anxious, and having zero energy left for my friends or my husband. I've got lots of growing and healing of my own to do.
I've got lots of goals in mind for 2025, but one of the biggest ones is to keep learning to speak Portuguese more fluently than I currently do. My long-term goal that I hope to seek in 2027 is to obtain dual citizenship, and in order to do that, I've got to speak the language on at least a basic A2 level. I've slowly been making progress, but it could be way better. I'd love for my husband and I to be able to visit Washington again at some point in the near future. The situation with the family members I used to share a home with has been slowly getting better, and I have hope that things will continue to get better with time. My mom's going to be 74 in March, and all I want for her at this point in her life is to have peace of mind and tranquility. It's not fair that she was dealing with so much stress and roundabout abuse from my other dysfunctional sibling.
I look forward to this year being better than the last. I certainly look forward to drawing more and working even more with 3D stuff, which can be found on my other account. Kinda took a hiatus from it, but I'm slowly starting to get back into it again.