Here I am, a few days late, but here I am. It is time for my yearly diatribe of another year older, another year wiser. I’m 33. 33. 33. 33.

33.

From a recent survey, it seems that 33 is the happiest age.

It is the happiest age because:

Psychologist Donna Dawson said: “The age of 33 is enough time to have shaken off childhood naivety and the wild scheming of teenaged years without losing the energy and enthusiasm of youth.

Now that I am 33, does it seem that way? Grant it I just got here, I can’t really decide. It’s still early to say, so I’ll refrain from any judgment until that time when my 33s are over.

But I guess ultimately it is something to look forward to, and I think for me now, at this time and juncture, it is something that I need to look forward to.

* * *

32. What can I say about it?

It was another year for the most part in the right direction. As stated in my year-diatribe, it has been a year where I have been very social. I’ve been going out more and been more than chatty with a few people. It is definitely a step in the right direction for me.

It was a year of great travels and new adventures. I had a great time exploring New Orleans, that great epic road trip up the 1 and the 101 to home. I had fun times in Philly with family and even working in Moorestown again. I had my share of little small road trips here and there. It was another great year of travels and adventures and I don’t think that will be something that will change.

Even for my 33 birthday trip was another great adventure to Arizona. Traveling is in my blood. It is in my heart and until I die, that will never go away from me. Never.

I think in a way I had been influenced by my parents when it comes with traveling. I may have written about this before, but it does make sense.

My mom had that sense of adventure in her like I do. She’s always game to go places; it’s just that no one takes her. I’m always down to go anywhere and I do.

My love of road trips is most definitely from my dad. Some of my fondest memories of when I was a child were the many road trips down to California to visit family that I took with my family. My parents would just pack us in the car and we would just go.

I’m sure it was the sense of adventure and seeing new places that was appealing and also probably missing school at some point. It was just nice. I had a great time and it had shaped me into who I am today.

* * *

32.

It had been a really really good year for me and maybe in the end it is driving me to change a little bit more. I am definitely itching for something new, something more demanding in my life, but in a way, I’m weary of the change.

I can’t wrap it in my head but I am in a current state of mind that I can’t shake. I just know that something is off and this had been happening for a few months now. I just don’t know what it is.

I have no motivation to do anything. Nothing really interests me anymore and I’m bored with my hobbies or everything that I’m producing.

I think I just need a little something, I just need that little spark of inspiration that will jump start my life again, to get out of this rut that had plagued me in the last few months of my 32s.

I’m sure it might just be a phase, just something that I’m coining as my mid-life crisis or a 1/3rd-life-crisis as Ms. D had coined it. I don’t know what it is but it is something that had been haunting me and it is something that I just definitely need to shake.

I’m sure this will be something that I’ll figure out in the long run if not the short run. Nothing is forever. Nothing.

* * *

Projects.

Art.

Hobbies.

Creative endeavors and distractions had been no different in my 32s as my other years. I had been focusing more on my latest script — that of family and how we got to America — and my photography.

I finished the script in about four to five months and have not looked back at it. I’ve just been waiting for notes and taking a step back to get a better feel of it, trying to figure out a way out of the trap that I’ve written myself into. I have a vague idea of what it is that I want to do, but it is just a matter of actually doing it. This lack of motivation is really killing me.

I finished another 365 photography project last year, but this time it is with cellphones and for the most part it was a success. Instagram definitely made it a lot easier.

In terms of photography in general, I haven’t been taking much pictures since the project was over at the end of the calendar year. I had no pressures no reason to take pictures unless it is a trip, a la Arizona 2012.

I think for the most part it all goes back to the lack of motivation or the lack of inspiration that I had been feeling lately. It is this rut of soul sucking suckiness that is just wreaking havoc on me; mind, body, and soul.

I feel bored with everything that I had been doing. My script. Bored. My photography. Bored.

I haven’t even been reading for I have two books that I’ve started months and months ago that are barely even close to being finished.

Motivation is severely lacking.

Something is definitely gone in me or out of tune. I just need to fix it.

I do have these grand ideas of changing the way I shoot photography. I do have these grand ideas of new photography projects and just learning new skills and trying a different style of shooting. I have learned all I can learn right now in terms of street photography.

I need to do more studio work. More planned work. More lighting work.

I think it would be a great change of pace for me. It will be challenging and I think that is something that I am looking forward to and something that I definitely need. A challenge.

I think that is another reason why I have switched to writing more prose with my little writing prompts and what not. I always felt uncomfortable with my prose. It’s just not ever any really good. I need more practice and I need to write more, to figure out my voice and my style. Listening to words, books, novels and novellas of other more established writings, I’m trying to pick up and learn how to write better. I’m trying to get a better grasp of voice and just better writing in general.

It’s another challenge that I think I definitely need and I think it will be a good year for me to do that.

33, a year of creative challenges.

Maybe that will be the theme for this year, this age, and this number. 33. Creative challenges.

As of now, besides the prose writing I did in the past couple of months, I haven’t done anything. But this year is still early. I just turned this number. I have lots of time.

* * *

There’s just something about last year that made me wanted to go out more and be a little more social and I followed through on that. Dinners with friends and a lot more happy hours and just hanging out and doing things with people.

Maybe with my old age, it got to the point where I realize that I can’t be the hermit all the time and maybe it’s because I haven’t been hanging out with Scott and Rutledge as much because we all got busy and because of Gabriel.

Also most likely it’s because I know that they are planning on leaving and that I need to find some new friends to hang out with. I think for the most part, that is the driving force behind it…and maybe trying to meet someone that is worth meeting.

I don’t know what it is, but it was definitely welcomed.

I’ve gotten comfortable in this whole socializing thing as proven by the holiday party. Things are good. Things are well as I didn’t need a social buffer for me to fit in and feel comfortable.

As of now, it doesn’t seem any different as I had joined the softball team and gone to a few dinners with people I never thought I’d get dinner with, like Doan and in a way making plans with the Irish Ginger.

As much as I would love to go back to basics, go back to the hermit that I am, in my cave, I don’t know what this year is going to shape up in terms of that. There’s a part of me that wants to go out and do more, but there is also a huge part of me this is looking forward to staying home and working on new projects, whether in photography or writing or something new. I don’t know, but it is definitely on my mind.

Along the way I have developed a sibling relationship with Blox and it’s cool. I guess after having Mui Gwai Fah getting busy and not chatting with me, especially after the holiday party, I had found someone else to chat with. It’s nice.

But let’s see where this whole socializing thing goes.

Again, with the whole socializing, I have no problems asking people out now or agreeing to go out with someone. It’s just a matter of getting someone to hang out with me. Whether it is dinner with B5 or someone else.

I even made an effort to ask Ms. D out, but we all know how that turned out and with that I made a decision to not see her as much anymore.

In a way, I am not sticking to the decision that I have made, which is to just move on and forget about her. Not seeing her as often is definitely a step in right direction, but I should stop emailing her too. That whole dynamic is just confusing to me. I have no idea what is happening. I’m not smart enough to figure it out.

It just seems I can’t decide on what I want. I see girls and notice them and notice how friendly they are to me, but I just can’t read them.

For example, I have no idea what the Cute Tracker is up to. None. I think she’s just friendly, feeding off of my friendly vibe.

Blah.

Back to the cave. That is what it seems to be. Back to the cave.

* * *

From everything that happened, from things going well to the dreaded fatigue and lack of motivation, it just seems that 32 was a year of transition. The year of where my childhood ends to where I need to grow up and man up. It is a time for change, to prepare myself for adulthood.

Maybe, just maybe.

A year of transitions. A year of growing up. It is a year of shedding this little selfish childish kid inside of me and just maybe grow up a little bit more.

In an attempt, I feel the need to dress a little more grown up. I feel the need to ditch my t-shirts for something more adult.

It’s not like I’m ditching them totally. That will never leave me, that classic style of t-shirts and jeans, but there are times where I feel that I just need to grow up and face the world as a grown up.

I can’t hide from things anymore.

A year of transitions.

It started in my late 32s and it’ll keep happening through my 33s.

* * *

I don’t know what it is, but I think that I am at a precipice in my life. It is an interesting time in my life, the time of being comfortable in my skin, being comfortable with who I am is over and it is time to make use of that, to bring it to the next level.

I think that is what is in store for me in my 33s. It is time.

If the saying 30s is the new 20s is true, then I’m about 23 right now. It would have been a year or two out of college for me, and it would be time for me to get serious about life, to get serious about who I am, and just work towards securing the happiness of my future. It is time.

It is just right.

33s is the time for that.

* * *

The last couple of months of my 32s, was that rut, that crisis I was having.

It isn’t an identity crisis, nor do I think it is an existential crisis. It is just a crisis of the mind.

I don’t think I am lost like in my quarter life, but it is definitely something.

Maybe it is getting close to that time of the year where Dad passed away and it is just hitting a little too close to home for me.

32.

I do notice that I have been an emotional mess this past year. Just the slightest things that usually set me off will definitely and most always set me off.

Watching How I Met Your Mother, that episode where Jason Siegel’s father passed away, I just lost it.

When Lily got out of the car I knew it. I started to cry and crack even before the words left her mouth.

I haven’t cried that hard in a long time. I haven’t felt that pain, the sense of loss and yearning for my dad in quite a long time.

He is always in my thoughts. Every day, he is, but it’s been almost 10 years, almost 9 years, and the pain is still there like I lost him yesterday.

Sensitive.

Heartbroken.

That is where I am at.

I miss him and that is reason enough for me being an emotional mess.

But again, I don’t know why it is happening.

Am I just purging everything in me to get to the point where I am now, to make this transition to the stable person, to take the leap to be that grown up that I must be?

Is it time?

Maybe.

* * *

I’m at a point where I am just rambling for the sake of rambling.

This post has lost its point, lost its meaning, and has become something that wasn’t meant to be.

My 32 has come and gone and it was another year in the right direction, but it was also a challenging year for me, pushing toward the next phase in my life.

I think maybe that is it. That little boredom in my life, near the end is pushing me to do something different. To have me live my life a different way, to find other things to make my life more interesting, to make me less bored.

It isn’t a pressure for me to abandon the things that I currently love or my hobbies, but to enhance them, to make them better, to find a different way to do them. Instead of screenplays, write prose. Instead of street photography, do another type of photography, portrait photography, studio photography. Just something different.

I think that is it. It has to be.

* * *

In terms of work, it is going.

When I’m learning new stuff, I love it, but then there are times, when I am just bored and waiting.

I have so many projects that are hanging above my head that I want to finish, but I am relying on other people to help. I usually work alone and I hate relying on other people.

It doesn’t help when these people procrastinate and don’t turn in their part of the project, so it is a waiting game and I have no patience for that, especially when work is issue.

It may seem that I don’t care about work, that work is work, but I do. I enjoy my work and I enjoying new and challenging things.

I just don’t like waiting and relying on other people, especially when they are unreliable.

I think that is another reason why the last couple of months have been frustrating.

This waiting game in my work life. Just waiting.

Looming projects that I want to finish, but can’t.

Whether it is because of my limited skill set or because I’m just waiting on people.

Irksome.

* * *

32 has come and went. Now I’m another year older, another year wiser.

Like most years, 32 has been a good year, a year in the right direction.

But unlike the many years in recent memory, it has been a trying year, or a little more so than others. It has been a year that is pressing me to be something more than I am.

I need to break out of this comfort zone that I have been living for the past 4 or 5 years or so and grow up a little more.

It has been shaping me in the direction to start the next phase in my life.

What does that entail, I have no idea, but I am more than ready for face it. Hopefully.

I can already tell that my 33 will be a trying year, testing me, forcing me to grow. I just hope that I will face it like most of my other challenges, head on without fear.

I think I am ready for this. I am ready for a change.

I am ready to grow up.

The kid inside can only be a kid for so long before everyone has to grow up. Even Peter Pan grows up.

So with this, I will bid my yearly adieu to the year that was, I will say my goodbye to 32 and welcome with open arms my new number. 33.

Bring it on.