Looking back at 2018

It's quite obvious that 2018 wasn't a very active year for my blog and I'm sorry for that. Since my last blog in May, I tried many times to write. I started to write about a few subjects, I continued to write them every once in a while, but somehow they are still as drafts, unfinished thoughts, writings, that still aren't ready to see the light of day. Maybe this year they'll get there, but not right now. Right now it's time to look back at the year I quite happily left behind even if there were great things in 2018.

2018 was a better year for me, but it wasn't great enough for me to want to live it again.
I turned 18 which was one of the biggest changes in 2018, good and bad. To be completely honest I have no idea how to feel. I am supposedly an adult, but I definitely don't feel like one. How could I possibly change overnight? I go to sleep and the next day I wake up and suddenly I have to pay for my health care and I can't use the "I'm underage" excuse anymore. I had all these new privileges and responsibilities. I am allowed to vote, which I don't know how to feel about 'cause I'm not really politically involved but now I feel like I have to be since I don't want to be that person who didn't vote but still complains about the situation. Like shut up Susan, that train already passed and you didn't jump on it.
One obvious thing is alcohol. I mean it does feel kinda weird that I can walk into a store, flash a piece of paper to the cashier and walk out with a sixpack. However I don't really feel like a lot has changed 'cause I haven't had the need to get my hands on booze when I wasn't at a legal age yet. I think the weirdest part of it all is that I can tell my parents "hey, I'm going out and I might take a few" and they have no authority to stop me. All that, just because a number changed in my age.

I was part of a student exchange project in my school and it was amazing. All thanks to Ella who convinced me to join even though I was on a break from school at the time of the sign up. To be completely honest it was a bit rough. I had only been back at school for a week and I didn't even have time to adapt when I suddenly had this sweet girl from Shanghai living in my house. Even though we are the same age, I seriously felt like a mom for the entire time. I guess a part of me just felt the need to take care of her, because she was in a different country and seemed so innocent that anything could happen. Overall the whole experience was unbelievable and I wouldn't trade it to anything else.

The summer of 2018 was great. You wouldn't know 'cause I wrote nothing about it here. I spent a lot of time with my family and relatives. I tried to see my friends often too. I went to a drag show with my friend. We were all over the moon. It was definitely worth the hype for us.
I attended Pride for the first time, which was a huge thing for me. Actually it pushed me to come out to everyone. My friends knew already. No one else did. My sexuality is something I have always contemplated a lot and I knew quite early that I didn't just like boys. I thought for years that I was bisexual, but then I realized I wasn't. I could love anyone. And to be completely honest coming out knowing that, terrified me. I didn't know how my loved ones would react. I didn't even know how they should react to me telling them I can love anyone. In my mind I felt it would be harder to accept, because they would never know who I would fall in love with. The thought of them seeing me in a different light scared the crap out of me. But it was for nothing. It went fine. No one looked at me differently. I was still the same Mari to them. The only change was in me, I felt free.
I went to Crete again. It was as great as it always is. I think this time it was even better. The overall vibe was better than last summer. I felt happier, my brother was happier too and my cousin was in a better place too. It was an amazing trip and I think it's what I needed.
We went to Katinkulta with my family for the first time in years and I could feel all the memories coming back. I spent a week there every summer when I was a kid and almost everything was the same, only I had grown up. The greatest improvement was the sauna world, which even I fell in love with even though I don't like saunas that much. Actually that might be something that changed too, because during 2018 I slowly fell in love with saunas.

Turning 18 came with one huge change in my life and more specificly my health care. I'm considered an adult which means that I can't go to the youth clinic and that changed my mental health care completely. I need to move to the private side and I still haven't done that so I have been without therapy for a few months but it was from my own will. I could have stayed at the clinic 'till moving to the next but I didn't feel that it was necessary to keep going there when I would have to transfer anyway. Someone else needs that appointment more than I do. It's difficult 'cause I can't get myself into looking for a therapist so I'm just floating in between.

In a nutshell 2018 was one hell of a rollercoaster with ups and downs, but I made through it. And I couldn't have done it without my family, my friends here, my friends on the internet and everyone else who helped me move forward.