Of all the years I’ve lived, 2018 was by far my favorite year and the best year of my life. I’ve thought this for many years now, including during 2018 itself. Although it contained some troubles, 2018 was mostly a super easy year for me. Almost everything that could have gone well did exactly that and the rest mostly went in a good direction. It was a nice break from the hard stuff in life, especially after 2017, which was one of the hardest years of my life.
All through 2018, I had my dog Sawyer, he was in good health, and we spent a lot of time together. Even with a robust work schedule, lots of hobbies, plenty of day trips, and several trips lasting a whole weekend or even longer, Sawyer and I still got a lot of quality time that year. As with every year I had him, he improved all the wonderful things of 2018 and reduced the pain of the hard things. Since I hadn’t yet developed even a fraction of the emotional intelligence I have now, he gave me a lot of love and comfort during my few struggles that year. All the wonderful time I spent with Sawyer in 2018 is a huge part of what made that year so great.
My skills as a dancer improved tremendously in 2018. This I attribute to a number of things. Perhaps most importantly, I went out swing dancing two to three times a week for most of the year. This included two regular dances and a third dance that came after a weekly lesson. Regular practice alongside weekly instruction took me from a near beginner to at least intermediate level quite quickly. Plus I put a lot of effort into getting feedback from instructors, going into great detail about things I could improve, and spending lots of time working on improving all the small things. Additionally, I went to my first two weekend dance workshops that year. I danced for many hours at each of those, learned a lot of new stuff, got way better at lots of old stuff, and took extra time to visit with one of my closest friends during the second workshop. Plus I learned Balboa in February of that year. As my familiarity and skill with Balboa increased, it soon became my favorite dance and remains so to this day.
I loved hanging out several times a week in 2018 with people close to me, whether we met to dance or do other things together. I had plenty of meaningful and fun experiences with dance folks even outside of dancing. We had lots of beach days, went blueberry picking, hung out in Itchetucknee Springs, and enjoyed lots of parties, evenings out, and other smaller events together. Some events were ones I hosted or made possible. These included a beach day, an Airplane! watch party, and the juggling event that I started that June and still host once a month. It had been many years since I regularly hung out with people just for fun so this was a wonderful feature of 2018 for me.
Additionally, for much of 2018, I talked to one or more of my best friends on the phone almost every night. We’d often talk on my way home from work. Mostly about things going on in our lives, plans to visit each other, fond memories, and other comforting subjects. That was a wonderful way for us to keep in touch, enjoy our time together, grow our friendship, and be there for each other when one of us went through a hard time.
My life outside of dancing was also wonderful overall in 2018. It helped a lot that I left a job I hated in early 2018 and continued the one I had started in the latter half of 2017 that was much more tolerable. A better work schedule gave me more money and more time to spend on cool things. This also helped me rebuild my finances after many financial struggles in 2017. Although it was a highly physical job, I still had plenty of energy to dance, juggle, go to the gym, and do lots of other physical activities. All of that meant I could go out more often with more people to more cool places and do more fun things than I ever had before.
Although I officially started my personal growth journey in 2017, 2018 is when the rubber truly met the road. That’s when I started reading regularly again. After some early inconsistency, I settled on reading at least one chapter of a book each day and stuck to that pretty well throughout the year. Most of the books I read that year and since then have been self-improvement books focused on emotions, communication, making positive change, developing good habits, etc. Getting back into the habit of reading regularly and reading so many useful books built much of the foundation for the incredible personal growth I experienced in 2018 and beyond.
Additionally, I started blogging in August 2018. For a little over a year, I put up a new blog post every day before switching to a weekly posting schedule in early 2020. This blog has been a wonderful way to get my ideas out there, help myself and others, piece my thoughts together, improve my speaking ability, inspire a lot of creative work elsewhere in my life, and improve my writing more than possibly anything else I’ve ever done. It’s one of several wonderful things I started in 2018 that is still improving my life to this day.
The third big step I took in the way of personal development in 2018 came when I started unicycling on Christmas Day after being gifted a brand new unicycle. Although I couldn’t do much at all with it in the final few days of that year, I did start practicing with it the day I got it and every day since, thus starting the habit that paved the way for my current skills. My unicycling journey has shown me that even seemingly impossible tasks can be accomplished with enough persistence and practice (and some useful pointers from people who unicycle better than I do). It’s also greatly improved my balance, allowed me to immediately pick up rola bola, added numerous skills that I can use for fun and performance, and given me some regular exercise every day since I started.
I can only think of two majorly painful experiences during 2018. The first was being turned down romantically in the spring. Even though she was as kind and gentle as possible and we were still on pretty good terms afterward, I still felt a lot of pain from that. My emotional intelligence was basically nonexistent back then so it took years before I even started properly working through that pain. Once I did, all the pain went away and our friendship has never been better. The other painful event came in December. That’s when I learned that all my friends are acquaintances but not all acquaintances are my friends. I learned that the hard way and it took a long time for me to get over that pain. Important lesson that I’ve carried with me ever since. There were a handful of much smaller painful experiences in 2018 but nothing like most of my years before or since then.
Despite some painful experiences, 2018 still feels like the song “Everything is Fine” by Josh Turner. I had a deep sense of contentment throughout that year. So many enjoyable things happened and more than made up for the few painful things. I’m still dependent on enough things going well for me to feel good, though not as much as I was in 2018. Despite having that dependency to a greater degree and also having even more emotional issues back then than I do now, enough things went well for me that it was an incredible year. I still say it was a better year for me than any year since, even though I’ve gained way more emotional intelligence and let go of a ton of negativity the past several years. I don’t know how much I’m romanticizing 2018 but, as far as I can remember, it was a wonderful year in almost every way possible.
This is not all in retrospect; 2018 seemed amazing even while it was occurring. I and at least one of my friends noticed how wonderful everything was as we were experiencing it. There’s a saying about wishing there were a way to know you were in the good times while they’re still happening. In 2018, that’s exactly what occurred. That year was so golden that some of us recognized it at the time rather than only realizing it after the fact.
As much as I miss 2018 and wish I could relive it, I know that it’s not coming back and that there’ll never be another year exactly like it, even if almost everything returns to how it was back then. Even if there’s regular swing dancing three times a week at the same venues that I frequented back then. Even if everyone who danced regularly during that year comes back to dance regularly again. Even if I get much more time with my loved ones once again. Even if most things were already in a great place or start going in the right direction soon for most people. Even if there’s an underlying sense of easiness, peace, and lesiure to everything. Even if all of that and everything else I haven’t mentioned about that wonderful year comes back, I still won’t have Sawyer. The best year of my life was made even better by having my little best buddy with me through the many sunny days and the few cloudy days. As much as I hope to have years as good as (and even better than) 2018, I know that they’ll never be as good as they could be since Sawyer won’t be with me in any of them. Him being gone reminds me that I can never go back to the good times, except in my memories.
As you can see, there was plenty of stuff that made 2018 a wonderful year for me. Although much of what went well for me that year was outside my control, I did do quite a bit to contribute to the excellence. Avoiding lots of previous destructive habits, developing positive habits, spending more time around good people and less time around bad people, pursuing enjoyable activities, lifting weights regularly, working on myself almost every day, etc. Sometimes it seems like 2018 was just a beautiful dream. So much was enjoyable and so little was painful. Everything seemed chill and relaxed that year. Nobody close to me seemed in a rush to get to a certain place in life, everyone seemed much more present than in later years, kindness abounded, and there was an easygoing feeling surrounding everything. I miss all of that. I miss the calm pace of that year. I also miss having lots of time to have a full schedule while still taking great care of myself and loving life. Now it seems like I have hardly any time for anything, especially my loved ones, my hobbies, and my own self-care. I don’t know if I’ll ever have another year similar to 2018. I hope I do. With how my life has gone the past several years, I could really use another wonderful year soon.
