One Year

I'm sorry I haven't been here in a while, but I've been out of the country. We went back to Japan and visited Tokyo Disneyland! I have lots to tell you about that later, but first, I have to celebrate the one-year-anniversary of this blog!

Yup, today is my birthday, which means my blog is celebrating its birthday, too. I started this blog a year ago with the hope that it will help me "figure out who I really am instead of what other people want me to be." ... So, did it?

Well, I can't really answer that directly because my definition of "figuring out who I am" has changed during the past year. A year ago, I thought that finding out who I am meant knowing my strengths as well as my faults and being comfortable with it. For example, being able to say, "I'm not a good cook, but I'm not going to beat myself up over it."

I've stopped calling myself a bad cook in the past year, though, because I've come to realize that labels are just that. Labels. Whether I'm a good cook or a bad cook depends on who's tasting the food. I mean, think about it - even the best sushi chefs would've been looked upon as complete lunatics by the majority of the world just a few decades ago!

Now, when I try to define who I am, I think of the little baby who came into this world 31 years ago today. The human being in its purest form, with no artificial labels and all the potential to be absolutely anything. Deep down, I am still that person, and in that sense, who I am is no different than any other person living today. And every single one of us still have all the potential to be most anything we want to be.

All the rest is just what we like or dislike at the moment. I currently don't cook well because I don't enjoy cooking now. But if I ever decide that I want to be a better cook, I can always learn how. Same can be said about my photography. I enjoy taking photos right now, but I don't have to like it tomorrow. And just because I stop liking photography doesn't mean that I become any less "me".

Now that I think back, it's strange that I chose to call my business "SonoSono Studio". As I mentioned in my profile, I chose it because it helps remind me that "I am who I am." But in actuality, I didn't know the true meaning of that particular phrase at the time that I chose it. I like the name more than ever though, and I'm also glad that my given name Sono means "I am" in Italian.

So where does my blog come into all of this? Not in an obvious way. After all, I didn't mention any of these ideas on the blog during the past year. Yet, figuring out who I truly am was (is) a long and slow process, and tossing around and editing potential blog posts inside my head definitely made me test my idea of who I was.

So, even though I found most of my thought process too personal to reveal publicly on this blog, I guess I can still say that this blog was an essential part of figuring out who I am.

Thank you all for reading these ramblings during the past year, and I hope you'll continue to come back for more!