2014 has been a lot of trial, error, and success. With trial and error you learn. You learn what works an what doesn’t. Eventually you hope that you find something that works. Although my year in blogging didn’t work as seamlessly as planned, (even the last month of 2014 went with weeks no posts!) I want to change that for next year. I’ll give it another try and hope for success.

December 31 is just another day of the year, but really it’s the start of something really big—2015. It is also a day to think about everything that has happened in 2014. Everything from being surrounded with great friends, the growing small business Matsumoto Studio, and figuring out my career path has been trial, error and success this year. I have become more aware of my surroundings and how my actions elicit reactions. I have learned when to shut my mouth but also when I should stand up for what I think is right. There are battles worth fighting and others that worth forgetting. I can’t be there for everyone all the time, but I can try my best to be the best when I can.

As the day ends and and we get ready for food, fireworks and fun with the fam, we also get ready for a new year. Another year of trial, error, but mostly success. Happy New Year!

The Christmas rush is well underway. The last few days have been a whirlwind of events. The missing days from the blog are an indication of just how crazy things have been. Major life changes have occurred. I celebrated friends getting married and friends who are moving on. I made new friends and once again, reconnected with old ones. I’ve been in three states in three days. As I write this note, 10,000 feet in the air somewhere above the Pacific Ocean I am anxious and ready to go home for the holidays.

I know once I get there it will be a whole different rush. I am excited to see my family and friends. I have a very loveable and demanding Grandma waiting for me and lots of questions will be asked and answered. We have holiday cookies to bake and family dinners to make. I’ve been running on little sleep. I don’t expect that to change much once this plane touches down on Maui, but I do expect to enjoy every minute of it. I am always crushing on Maui, and I am in love with the idea that I will spend the last days of 2014 here:

My name in my sister’s phone is  “jen spoiled.” Do you think it’s because she thinks I’m not spoiled? Wrong. So I may have been treated with a little extra care growing up, but hey, that isn’t my fault. I am not only the baby of the family, but I am also a girl and if there is one person who spoiled me the most growing up, it was my Grandpa Takeji. I bring up my Grandpa today because today would have been his 93rd birthday.

Fully retired by the time I came along, Grandpa and G-Flo were my full-time babysitters. I enjoyed seven years of being “Grandpa’s girl.” He had two other granddaughters, but we definitely spent the most time together.  Ice cream? Of course. Chocolate Milk? Whenever I wanted. Driving up the mountain to see the horsies or to the fancy hotels just to people watch? A normal activity. He always spent time with me after dinner watching old shows on “Nick at Nite” like, “I Love Lucy” or “Betwitched.” I hated pre-school, so I got picked up early. When I started going to real school, my Grandpa picked me up everyday in his car, even though we lived less than five minutes away walking. He was always waiting at the fence, and I never waited for him. I was lucky. Fortunate to have so much attention given to ME. That’s why I am spoiled.

When my Grandpa passed away, I knew it was okay because it meant he didn’t have to suffer anymore. He had cancer and became very weak. I was young, but I understood he wasn’t getting better and things like that happen. My memories of him that I will never forget include the smell of his after shave and always having toothpicks and Ricola in his pocket. He made the pocket protector cool again and blamed G-Flo for distracting him every time he made a mistake.  He was tall and strong, and treated me the way every little girl wishes she was treated.  I was fortunate to get spoiled by Grandpa, but also learned to be independent after he left. When he was no longer around to tie my shoes, get me anything I wanted, or drop everything to help me, I was forced to learn to help myself.  I remember when I started doing “chores” after he wasn’t around anymore. I also started walking home from school (the horror), but everything was okay.

Many years later, I see how those first seven I had with him were very nurturing and grounds for me to be called spoiled. At a young age I lost something I was so reliant on.  I wish that he was around longer to see me grow up a little more–so that I could take my turn to do things for him. I may have continued to get special treatment in other ways, but that’s the job when you’re the baby of the family. I’m spoiled and now you know who started it.

Back in March, Jes and I found ourselves at home to celebrate G-Flo’s 87th Birthday. This year, more than ever, we have found our way home at the same time, for some time. This has all been thanks to Matsumoto Studio. Although we are in different places during the majority of the year, Matsumoto Studio, is the one thing that brings us together. Growing up five years apart, our age difference meant we were interested in different things. Now, that we are both older, we share so many similarities. We may have spent many years doing different things but at some point, they all collided.

Matsumoto Studio is just beginning. We are just at the shore getting our feet wet with the crashing waves waiting to jump in to the big ocean. Our similarities have become a strength for our sisterhood and now a small business. I am lucky to share something  with someone so close to me. We are sisters, so we have our moments, but it also means we have something special. We think similar things but differently enough to challenge, grow and push each other to be our best. That’s the best thing I could ask for in a partnership, better yet, a sisterhood.

One more week and I’ll be back here, on Maui.  Amazing that this place is what I call home. Maui made me. The more years I grow up, the more years I spend away from home, I  realize how Maui–the people, the community, the lifestyle–made me who I am.  Now I live in a place that could  not be more opposite than my hometown. The island of Maui has a population of 145,000 and New York City has one of 8.4 Million. Maui’s tallest building in sight is only eight floors high, while New York City’s is 104. With all these contrasts there is something that Maui has taught me that has been useful in New York–patience.

In a city where you share all your space with everyone, friend, neighbor, unwanted or wanted stranger, you also have to learn patience. When the lines to check out a the Trader Joe’s wraps around the store, or the subway platform is compacted with busy commuters trying to make it home, sometimes you have to learn to wait. When a subway car comes and it is packed with people, you let it go and the next will arrive a little more empty. In New York, many things come at an instant and many do not.  People bump you, but usually not on purpose. There simply is not enough space for everyone. Today I waited in a very annoyingly long Post Office line. Thankfully it moved pretty quickly, but the woman behind me thought otherwise. In this moment she could have practiced more patience. If I let all these little moments bother me, I would be fed up with New York. Instead, I have to think that it’s just how it is and I need to get used to that.

Maui is the rock (literally and figuratively) that keeps me grounded in this fast paced life. I think about home while being away from home and how each step of my journey on and off the rock, has made me who I am. Well, next week, I’ll be back on it. I really can’t wait to be there, so until then I’ll just have to practice my patience.

Post-WWII, post-December 7, 1941. My gorgeous Grandma at 18, somewhere off the shores of Honolulu.

I wish the title of this post reflected its modern-day definition, but it definitely does not. After feeling dead for a day, with a mysterious sickness, sleeping for 23 hours, and doing everything in my power to not get sick on the subway, I am slowly coming back to life. Getting sick always has the best timing ever. When I have much to do in life (laundry), work (Matsumoto Studio), and prepping with just one  week left before leaving New York for the holidays, I just had to also get sick. But whatever, it’s nothing that sleep, Gatorade, and club soda can’t heal.

Success is often defined by the money in a bank account, letters after your name (like PHD, which I’ll most likely never be), or maybe even who you know (Taylor Swift). While I don’t believe that money will make you eternally happy (although, it definitely helps along the way) I believe success will. However a person defines what makes them successful is up to him or her, and is the measure to figure out when success has been achieved. For me, right now,  I think it comes down to two words–SUCK LESS.

I want to suck less at whatever it was I was doing before. I believe in working hard and gaining skill. If I try my best to learn, I will. Doing new things will put me in new positions and opportunities for different things. I will be sucking less than I the me that didn’t know those skills before.  No one wants to work with or hang out with someone who sucks. So if you are sucking less, this also should not  be a problem. I think I am already sucking less than the me of a few years ago. Maybe even the me of a month ago. Sucking less will eventually bring success. I don’t expect to be a billionaire (but as Bruno Mars said, I want to be one, so freaking bad) or friends with billionaires , but I do expect to feel success in the accomplishments I make. I do feel accomplished. I have set goals and met them, but now there are more goals to set. More things to suck less at and be better at doing. Good thing I don’t plan on being an octopus because their job is to basically, well, to suck.

The long hours, late nights, and risks are all steps towards success. Success doesn’t happen over night, or over a few months. Maybe it will take me years to find success. There are days when I feel like I am killing it at life, like when I walk to the subway and there train is approaching the station withins seconds, and right there, that’s success. Everything went the way I wanted it to or better. I can’t always  control what will happen every step of the way, but I can definitely try my best, to suck less.

Just before summer of 2014, I started eating grapefruit, again. I say again because prior to this, I only had it at home, where it was always pre-cut or squeezed as juice to drink. It pained me when I cut this one particular grapefruit and saw that I went too far in and cut fruit away with the skin. Ironically I paired this “mistake” with some of my favorite glitter letters and wrote “JOY.” I shared a pic I took with my phone on Instagram and it made people happy and that was a great outcome! Cutting grapefruit is a lot of effort and a lot of times, real little fruit. In a single sitting I can eat something twice as fast as it took me to cut out all the spears. BUT, I will STILL do it. In a lot of things, you work hard and you reap benefits. In this case, I get to enjoy the fruit of my labor but  sometimes you never will.

There have been a few times this year that I felt I worked really hard on something and didn’t get the recognition or fulfillment I thought I would feel at the end of the project. I wasn’t able to enjoy the fruit. Instead, I felt like something was lost or missing throughout the process. This feeling, often coming out of stress and frustration, is unenjoyable.  There is no point in complaining to someone (but it might be okay if you keep it to a minimum). Instead, I am learned to try to stay positive. To really look at the bright side or how these stressful, less-exciting experiences can help me learn for next time. Everything has a lesson embedded into it and it’s our job to listen and learn from one of our first teachers–ourselves. Although not everything can be perfect, I do want to see the JOY in the good, the bad and the great-fruit.

Ping: “What are you doing?”

Me: “Work”

Ping: “But you don’t have other work, except for me! …and the other guys that you babysit.”

A lot of my 2014, and the last three years has been getting to know this kid that goes by Ping. His Mama, Paweena,  and I met in school and I’m glad we did. The two of them and their +1, Eric, have become family here in NYC. When Ping tells me that he is my work, he’s right. However, I don’t see him as  work.  Ping has brought a lot of fun to my daily routine. He is honest, open, and lovable. He wears his heart on his sleeve. When he’s upset, I know it, but when he’s happy, he is beaming. He sometimes pulls the jerk card, but mostly not. After all, he is a kid so that is allowed. Working with and around Ping has been a challenge. Always making it to school by 2:30PM so he doesn’t have to wait in “office jail” for his lame sitter,  but at the same time working up to the very last second to make the most of the morning. Then sometimes sitting like a buddha at the school playground, laptop out and designing underway while soccer balls come a little too close to hitting my computer screen. I’ve taken phone calls while paying for snacks at the corner deli and sent e-mails from the free wi-fi at his fight school gym.

All of this has mostly been a blessing. A blessing that I am able to do my work, while spending time with a kid that reminds me about the importance of stopping computer time to make time to play a card game or think about all the powers of “mythical creatures.” Ping reminds me that it’s okay to eat Nacho Cheese Doritos because they are actually pretty good and that it is okay to break the rules. Ping reminds me to never set limits because there are none in his imagination. He tells me stories that make no sense and sometimes I just say “yeah sure” even though I can’t follow. Ping’s creative nature and fun-loving spirit is something I hope he never loses. He’s growing up to be a little man (with the guidance from awesome Mama and Eric)  and I’m lucky to witness greatness in the making.

From age 10-25 these guys (and a bunch of other guys too) have been around for me. A bunch of us gathered in Austin, Texas in October for #bigDs25 birthday celebration. Not sure how he got seven friends, from five different states to fly in for one weekend, but it happened. Being away from my life-long friends for so long, I realized how some things never change–and that is a good thing. We get back together after being apart for months, even years for some and nothing is different. We are back in 7th grade making jokes, rolling our eyes, and pushing each other to our limits. But hey, what are friends for. These guys pulled me through a lot of good and changing times. They are the constant to the equation and I am so thankful for them. We may not all talk that often or get to be in each other’s presence long, but they are home. We have a special group of friends going and I’m not sure how they feel about me, but I’ll be there for them and with them, till the end.

Eight months have passed since the last time I re-commited myself to this blog. Now that we are into the last month of 2014, before the end of the year officially comes and goes, I wanted to re-commit  to this again. I would hate to say I have a problem with commitment (because I don’t think I do). Rather than typing my thoughts, I’ve been taking pen to paper and writing them. Sketching. Scratching out. Re-writing, but never really re-reading. What is done is done. I experienced firsts and lasts and learned to embrace all of it.

There has been a lot of change that has happened in 2014. Things are evolving into something I am not sure what will be, yet. Matsumoto Studio is growing and as I celebrated another year of living (quarter century, woo!), life is changing too. There are new responsibilities, new efforts being made, and new challenges to overcome. For what’s left of 2014, I will try my best to recap and reflect for the only way to go from here is forward. Shakas up.