THERE IS A LIGHT THAT NEVER GOES OUT

For at least the last half of my life, my favorite number has been 28. It's a so-called auspicious number to the Chinese, I think, but for many years running, it was also my register number in class, and I felt an affinity with it. Before I turned 25 and experienced the rollercoaster that the past three years have been, I thought that when I turned 28, it would be the best year of my life. I would be happy, and I would have figured out love, and my career, and all those things that are supposed to make a life fulfilling. I am now twenty-eight years old, it's been ten months since I turned this age, as my birthday is coming up in May. Unsurprisingly, because life can rarely be planned or turn out as expected, this has not been the happiest of years. However, even though I can't be said to be completely happy, there is something about this past year that has satisfied me. With my father, I learnt to let go. I used to always have the expectations that he would eventually become a better dad, but all those expectations ever did was disappoint me. It tires me out to have contact with him, so I have slowly been setting up my boundaries. Sometimes you have friends that you can only spend time with in small doses, and sometimes you can't help if your parent turns out to be one of those people. Setting up boundaries is healthy, regardless who the other person is in your life. My mother is a religious person, and I am not. Just yesterday, while I was throwing up in the bathroom, she made comments about the shorts I was wearing, she said "how can I show you my concern when you keep doing these things." In the past year, I learnt not to allow my mother's expectations to color my impression of myself. I started wearing what I wanted, I got the tattoo I'd been wanting for a long time, I lived mostly the way I wanted to live. Then there was one. This man had the biggest butterfly effect in my life. After he'd fucked up the trajectory of my life, he wanted to move on, and assumed I was ready to move on. When I was 27, I was still holding on to a lot of anger. I thought, if I'm not happy, why should this man, who fucked up my life, be allowed to be happy? So I did things out of anger and spite, but then I turned 28, and I resolved my issues with my own parents that contributed to my sense of self. I realized, as they say, that just because this man was not allowed to be happy, did not at all contribute to my own happiness. I finally knew I had to apologize for what I did, and so I did. Yesterday, the man and I finally apologized to each other for what we'd each done, and we even ended on a neutral note, by hoping we each could get past the negativity. It means so much to me, knowing that we had finally come to a point where we could wish each other well. It has been a tough year in my life, but I did everything the best way I could, and I am proud of myself. Also, on an unrelated note, Irene texted me about my love for Shark Tank, and she told me Chris Sacca is a douche who engaged in sexist behavior, so I went to read up on it, and got led to this.