My road to 1800- case sharing

It was 1 year ago when I was interested and started spending a lot of time playing chess.
Spending time studying was some months later.

Because I think slow or simply because I like solid games-- I find positional games more controllable and enjoyable than chaotic sharp games are.

I studied only 2 Openings- London system, and Catalan;
and only 2 Defense- Caro-Kann/Slav, and King Indian Defense/Pirc; 
As these openings and defense had similar pawn structure, midgame strategy and tactics was more preparable, guiding me through trappy openings directly to the midgame.
(studying the KID is mainly for attacking the KID/Pirc; as it is mysteriously popular in 1500-1800 rapid and quite sharp following king side attack)
I believe that it's a shortcut to study only 4 openings to get here; whether it's boring or ultimately hazardous or not, it work till 1800.

I did tactic puzzles to sharpen pattern recognition and process speed; I believe the former is important for every player, and the latter more important for strong players (maybe 2000+). At 1800 level, pattern recognition is still far more important than process speed. 

I studied to obtain knowledge to roughly predict outcome of 1-2 piece endgame and rough concept of key maneuver in most of which, but I often performed imprecise. Both sides of my games still blunders endgame, especially when multi passed pawns on the board, when multi pawns at 6th rank, under time pressure, etc.

I often play 3|2 to train process speed and almost always analyze played game (unless hanging queen, castle or so). Computer estimation of performance rating was inflated in positional games and thus confusing, I more often rated 2000+ in rapid than not. 

I think the main barrier for me (or an adult) to advance in chess is
1. shattered time for deep study as we got a job and had to earn money 
2. decreased of both process speed (flow knowledge) and building of pattern recognition (crystalized knowledge) with aging

Maybe I hit 2000 someday, or it costs too much for my life and I never get there. 
I write all this as a record for this period of time in my life, and as a picture what 1800 look like for players growing to 1800.
Thank you for your time dropping by!