"I'm coming back."

Facebook

That was my goal for this whole year, since the first three statements pertaining to the last few years more than applied for me. Almost all too well.

I came across this pic listing these personal statements under a Facebook group dedicated for those who identify as INFJ, the same Myers-Briggs personality type that I identify as, by a special soul who got the pic themselves from another group called The Idealist and who felt the very same about these very statements personally as these did for me…

"2016: changed me."

My first job as a cashier at Stop & Shop left me with a first-hand account of what the "adult" working world would eventually give me, which was burnout: the reversal of everything that I achieved to be by the end of high school. Everything that made me who was, a person with ambition, raw passion, and determination to do whatever it was that I needed to do, and which was heightened with more confidence in myself by the time I graduated…

All of that was taken away from choosing to work at a menial cashiering job over the hard work I should have put into my college work.

"2017: broke me."

Soon after transferring from my first college to Stony Brook, I saw the burnout within me in full effect; in fact, even beforehand, I knew that I wasn't the hard-working student that I used to be and that everyone knew me as. I lost all of my fire. My drive, my determination.

When I took an online course for the winter session, just before my very first semester at Stony Brook, I certainly did not put my all into it, and it left me with an "F": the grade that shall not be named, breaking my longtime acing academic streak.

"2018: opened my eyes."

By the time I came across this pic on Facebook with these yearly statements, about the first week in November of 2018, I knew the first two were true all too well, though I wasn't exactly sure what part in 2018 that would open my eyes, since I already knew that I definitely needed a change, just not sure what. Then came the very opportunity that I needed just a few days later…

I went into the city, specifically directly into Penguin Random House for a trip sponsored by Stony Brook's Career Center, to see what an ordinary book publishing company and its departments at work… well, worked! And what an eye-opening experience it was…

Before this trip, the main reason why I wanted to major into English – and eventually minor in Creative Writing – and graduate with a Bachelor of Arts is that I want to make it as a successful professional author, to write the kinds of stories that I loved reading about when growing up. However, some of my family – and family friends – thought that it was too unrealistic, or to quote, "not so lucrative."

Maybe, and in more ways than one, I let those opinions get to me, and it may be the main reason why I never really broke out of my burnout phase – or to an extent post-burnout phase. I let everyone control how I felt or dealt about setting my standards, and when made vulnerable from burnout – the very phase in which they had put me in the first place – I just went along with it. After that trip, I knew that I had to get a good start in a somewhat related industry: by striving to be an editor in publishing, specifically in Penguin Random House for making this very trip possible for a devoted bookworm like me.

Out of retrospect, the logic behind this decision is, and if I may compare myself to someone we happened to lose this year (2019) by the name of Toni Morrison, about whom I recently got to learn more: in editing other writers' work, I wouldn't be too far behind actually writing the content that would be edited by someone else alongside me…

"2019: I'm coming back."

So, while I hadn't yet achieved getting an internship with PRH in the editing department, I had scored not one but two editorial internships in writing various articles. Though I had to drop one, I currently work as an intern at Bookstr, writing articles about everything about books mixed with pop culture (i.e., the living dream of a bookworm aside from book publishing)!

And not only that, but I also landed a temporary Bookseller position at Barnes & Noble, after having applied for over five years! Though it was not exactly part-time, it was still certainly the ideal job I had dreamed of obtaining… in my young life.

While I loved nothing more than to be a part of the magic that was supplied by the legendary Barnes & Noble, the very store I had grown up loving to come in all the time to get hands full of books, being a cashier again – though listed as "Bookseller" – just brought back some of the all too familiar bad feelings I was forced to grow used to back at both Stop & Shop and Staples.

In fact, I am glad that by January 11^th of this new year to come, I will be let go from my position, which was only necessary for the holiday season, because even though I am so grateful for finally getting this opportunity that I have yearned for in so long and having met the great people that continue to make my favorite Barnes & Noble store great, I need to move on to much better and grander things, things that may supply this very Barnes & Noble…

So, switching back to the academic side of things, while there wasn't much improvement, considering that I had to once again juggle schoolwork with this job, not to mention an internships on my free from school days, at least I got the lucky ace up my sleeve, in the form of an online winter session TECH course that I needed to take to go towards my degree.

Also, and here's the more important thing, unlike the previous semesters when during the final week down to the final days of each semester that I would work tirelessly on getting my final projects and papers in, many of which would be marked down, slightly or significantly, for being late, this time around, however, I managed to get all of my stuff in on time!

Throughout everything that I had been through, this year, the past few years, and even the past decade, while I still need to make some – maybe even several – improvements about myself, I am not going to overlook how far I've come, no matter which time-stamp from which I choose to go. In a way, maybe I did come back and I didn't even notice – like a phoenix rising out of the ashes, the one thing that truly matters is that I made it, maybe scarred and burned but still alive and willing to keep living and learn how to thrive again.

So, yes: I think I did come back. It just took me a long time to realize it, and considering that I got one final semester before graduating from college for good, 2020 is the year when the phoenix inside me will stay for good and build me up in the way that I'm meant to be: reborn.