TWO YEARS of You've Got Asha!
More ruminations on growing up, and oddly enough, Clifton Strengths
Two years ago, I’d just finished my junior year of college. I’d been living at my dad’s house during that weird post-quarantine year and was doing summer research with one of my favorite professors, feeling like a kid playing dress up— only for a profession I hoped I’d get to have and was trying to start the motions of getting there.
It was the first summer I felt independent. Living in an apartment with my friends— only five minutes away from my dad’s, but that was something. Going to cookouts hosted by other kids spending their summer doing research, trying to teach them line dances (Most of them just watched or carried on their conversations. I was gonna do the Biker Shuffle with or without them.), all of us just seeking any opportunity to feel like we were in community and belonged. I learned how to swim in a MayX class and spent most of my afternoons biking to Swamp Rabbit Cafe wearing a skateboard helmet or trying to run further than a 5k without feeling like my lungs or legs were going to give out or both— all seeds for later interests.
And on July 17th, after spending an exorbitant amount of time reading about alternatives to social media, blogs, digital gardens, and everything in between, I started this newsletter-meets-blog.
I didn’t write anything substantial until August 3rd. I was still on a social media detox— a class yo-yo diet in my life. I reflected on this first summer of freedom in my young adulthood, my struggles with losing time and energy to social media, feelings of FOMO, and questions about what true community and belonging mean. There are common threads in my reflections, on this newsletters-meets-blog, in my journal, in my conversations with friends: a tension of distraction from what really matters, a feeling of some nebulous expectation to exist in the view of others for their consumption, and a desire to break free from this pressure; to play, to rest, to be creative, to be silly, to create, to try new things, to be bad things, to learn, to feel myself growing.
Whenever I write goals for myself, they’re always the same. It doesn’t matter if its my 15-year-old-self at New Year’s writing to my 16-year-old-self or my 22-year-old-self reflecting on some moment where I can feel my life shifting just a little like the glass pieces in a kaleidoscope— all the same, but falling into a completely different image, the last one forever irretrievable.
I always want to spend more time outdoors. I always want to prove to myself that I can practice discipline. I always want to spend less time thinking of others and what they’re thinking of me. I always want to do something meaningful. I always want to make myself proud.
And I always want to share myself with others. I want to be with others. I want to be in community.
Funny enough, the day I wrote my first blog on here, reflecting on a kind of summer slump that I’d been feeling in this odd month that always feels so transient and never lives up to the expectations but always leaves you changed in some unexpected way1, is the same day that I will be leaving Belfast.
Maybe it is that July and August always enfold big transition periods for me. I have lived my life on an academic calendar for as long as I can remember, and I will live that way for the foreseeable future— seeing that I have signed up for 6 more years of graduate school and then hope to be a professor: in school for the rest of my life.
But I find it interesting— these questions I seem to be stuck on. In looking back, I can see how they have always been central tensions in my life.
I used to find it odd how I always fell into school and community groups or organizations that were in re-building or completely fresh states of being. I’d join unexpectedly and find myself quickly coming into leadership roles, helping build from scratch, or reigniting the community. Marching band, church youth group, the social justice club, student government, you name it.
It used to drive me crazy (and I know it drives other people crazy, too *wink*), but I realize now that this is a theme in my life because I’m called to it. I’m constantly thinking about community and belonging because it’s my calling. To build, to connect, to improve, to advocate, to lead, to support, to empower.
For those of you familiar with Clifton Strengths, my top strength is communication, followed by futuristic, individualization, activator, and maximizer.2 This is a deadly combo for coming across as finding a fault in every little thing and taking on too many projects, but it’s also a combination that keeps me working, first and foremost, for justice, equity, and better futures.
I often think about these strengths in a context that puts me in service of or in collaboration with others, but thinking about them in the context of my relationship with myself has helped me realize my own needs and how to find fulfillment in my own life.
Giving myself goals and projects to make my life feel excellent to MYSELF (futuristic + maximizer), following my own path, being willing to be a little unconventional in pursuit of my own fulfillment (individualization), and taking actions to show myself that I can follow through on my promises to myself, that I can practice discipline for my goals, and I can show myself how truly capable I am while being creative and building something with a purpose (activator + communication), are catalysts for my personal fulfillment.
Admittedly, I’m a recovering workaholic (also probably a side effect of my combination of strengths— if you believe in that kind of thing) who loves projects and fixer-uppers, but it is important not to let “doing things” run my life.
I’ve remedied my urge to do things for the sake of doing them by making sure they really align with my values and my current goals. The question I asked myself in 2021 was, “What truly matters to me right now, and what [do] I want more (and less of) in my life?”
My summer this year, just like the July I was beginning this newsletter, feels fleeting and itchy. This time I am not struggling with FOMO or lack of community and belonging, but maybe the opposite: knowing that I am leaving and my community and sense of self will shift. I’ve shown up for myself this year. I practiced discipline and surprised myself by meeting my most challenging goals. I’ve built beautiful friendships, made incredible memories, and made myself proud in a context so detached and different from what I’ve always known. But I will be beginning from scratch again, and that’s daunting.
I’m coming to terms with this. Nobody ever really knows how to say goodbye and how to give closure. And maybe there will never be closure. But what I know is that this is how it goes. This is what life is about.
And this is what this newsletter-meets-blog-slash-alternative-social-media-experiment-slash-live-journal-hobby is about.
I’m growing up in this blog, and you can read it all: all the worrying-fumbling-tender-hearted Asha’s that led up to the me that is scrunching her nose while sappily reflecting right now. This is my project, for myself (but also for you, too) that allows me to be creative and to contribute to something meaningful in my life: a kind of record of the thoughts and feelings that will dull in my memory but are stepping stones into my future.
I don’t know what the next two years of You’ve Got Asha look like, but I hope I keep playing into my strengths as I navigate my twenties. I hope I keep getting outside, and I hope I keep investing in activities and opportunities that show me just what I’m capable of. I hope I find my place and purpose in this next chapter of my life, and I hope these transient moments keep carrying me exactly where I’m supposed to be.
And in a remix of my New Year’s letter to self, here’s a list for the rest of July:
More:
Running slow and looking at the scenery. Try to remember this place.
Celebrating the little things. Finishing another 1,000 words on the dissertation, no rain for the first day in a week, fitting all my shoes in my suitcase.
Sappiness, tenderness, and vulnerability. (Dramatic rainy heart-felt goodbyes are okay and probably good for the soul.)
Whisper(ish) laughs in the library with Nicole, Mo, Louise, and Laura
Less:
Counting days
“Should”
Boojum. Its always a disappointment.
July consistently being one of the strangest months of the year is a blog in and of itself.
If you have $20 to spare, I highly recommend taking the assessment online to know your top five strengths. This has been a game changer for understanding my leadership style and why I tend to do the things I do. It’s also helped me understand others and have more compassion when working with people who lead differently than me.
always love "you've got asha" days!