At some point in your life you ask yourself – where have I been, how did I get there and why am I back here, again?
I woke up in the middle of the night, couldn’t fall asleep again, and started reflecting on all the memorable moments during the past decade – things I have done, places I have been, inspiring people I have met, guys I have dated and interesting conversations I have had. I started crying as I don’t know how the time passed by and how I went through some certain phases when I was feeling very lost and confused.
2019 has been a year of critical reflection for me. It was like my decade in a nutshell, and somehow I kept bumping into or reconnecting with the people I met previously, specially the people from 2014. I wonder if all of this is coincidence or by design? 2014 was the year that I felt stuck in running my own business and tired of a life that is only about work, so I then started exploring the creative part of myself, finding the new directions and ended up exiting my first business. It was a remarkable year when serendipitously I met a lot of interesting people, who are still in my life or keep coming back. Like going to close up the decade with a close friend from 2014, so I keep asking myself and refreshing my memories on where I have been these years, and what I have gone through during the past 10 years:
- 2010 studied in London
- 2011 back to Hong Kong and started running my first business
- 2012 worked damn hard
- 2013 started my blog, this blog
- 2014 exited my first business, exploring myself, finding new directions
- 2015 one year break travelling around the world, been to 18 countries that year
- 2016 founded a tech startup – my second business
- 2017 ran out of funding, my startup failed. Got into Blockchain
- 2018 dipped into Crypto
- 2019 reflections and reconnections, finding new directions
It can be summed up in such short paragraph, but it was 10 years, the golden 10 years that bring someone from her 20s to her 30s, back and forth from a dreamer to a realist, inner peace and chaos, emotional breakdowns and back strong and again. Here is a quote I really like for years, especially the days when I was going through some existential crisis, feeling confused about the people surrounding me, unknown about the energies they brought to me, and uncertain about the stability in relationships, and who we decide to allow to stay in our life, or perhaps our life decided of itself by the people who stay?
“All the people we have met and all the people we have yet to meet, are meant to exist so we can find them, so we both could exchange a set of directions, which will guide us to the next place we are meant to go. And as we go, we must always believe that maybe this could be our last stop. That maybe the next person we meet will not have a set of directions, that maybe they will offer us something beautiful enough to inspire us to stay.”
And I forgot there is a crane got frozen in my heart for years and I avoided to touch her because I was afraid that she will melt and start crying over her broken wings, or she has simply forgotten how to fly.
So it’s the end of the decade and we’ve got a brand-new decade to start.
I did this photoshoot in New York, one of my fave cities, some while ago.
Photoshoot Assistant: Vanessa Lee