2021
The end of a year has its own specific emotional signature: there is a sense of completion in the air.
It feels like the last few seconds of watching the sand in an hour glass run out. Some people will try to cram as much into those last few seconds as they can, but typically, most people will choose to finally stop scrambling and just accept the outcome of their efforts so far. Depending on how close this outcome is to our expectations, that acceptance may be accompanied by discontent and a promise to ourselves to use the time in the coming year more efficiently- enter “new year resolutions”. Or if we are pleased with ourselves and our efforts, there is a sense of completion.
At the end of 2021, I felt both very strongly: acceptance, but also, some discontent.
Much of this year (if not all of it) blended seamlessly into 2020. Didn’t feel at all like a whole year passed but it did. It has. For one thing, I cannot believe how old I turned this year. It is true that comparison is the thief of joy but I cannot help feeling stunted in some ways- what with all the bombardment from social media with running commentary of the best parts of others’ lives; the perfectly manicured, expertly curated lives of the characters in all our favorite pandemic movies and shows taunting and titillating, the 21 year old homeowners on Twitter, the 25 year old “luxury” car and business owners, the coupled up love birds whose difficult conversations we never hear, the brilliant scholars with their choice scholarships and publications, jobs they absolutely love, the golden friendship groups whose hiccups and hurt feelings we never see, the luxury resort holidaying, flawless skin having, fashion-killer wardrobes owning others. So yeah, I feel inadequate in some ways to be this age, working this job still wishing on things that I thought I for sure would have already.
It was not all bad though. Good things, great even, happened for me in 2021.
I also grappled with a lot of feelings this year in ways that were new to me. In 2021, I think I did the most internal work so far in my entire existence of cultivating my specific taste, a real sense of what I like. It was the first year where I (mostly) truly only wanted to live up to my own standards for myself. I have some wins but naturally, there are also lessons. Losses?
At the beginning of 2021, I wanted to write more. And I did. But then I realized I didn’t know who I was writing for. The standards to which I hold the quality of my writing continues to fluctuate (and inevitably disappoint me when I veer too far off on a tangent I have no business going on) because I have not yet clarified to myself who my reader is specifically, and why I am saying the things to them that I’m saying in my writing. Why should they care? Why do I care?
Figuring out the audience was one of the main pillars of good writing I learned I’d have to grapple with during the HMS writing course I’ve just completed. I’m still on the journey to figuring that out. I may have to draw the portrait of this audience from scratch. Visa says when all else fails, to write (and go on any other meaningful quest) for your younger self. That seems noble. I want that young, timid girl to like who I become, to enjoy, be proud of the things I write. I also want my other selves to be proud of it I guess- current me and future me. But considering an outer audience of people for my writing is quite the challenge. An other, maybe two others, people who get what I’m saying, and why, and maybe even want to talk to me back (?!!). I imagine they would probably have to be people like me although I could very well be way off in my perception of what this even means (“people like me”) versus what it actually is in reality. So if you’re reading this, and you think you enjoy “listening” to me write, could you please tell me why?
What else did I want in 2021: for love to find me. I know now that I need to spend more time figuring out what I mean when I say this. What does it mean to love? For love to find me? And why wait to be found? What does it take, what does it look like to find love and bring her home with you? A few days ago, my sister was telling me about what new books she’s currently reading to stave off the boring monotone of the sleepy, red-earthed town she is posted to for her national youth service year. These days, she loves dark crime thrillers, and what about me? she asks.
Romance.
Romance novels with cheesy love stories and sticky sex scenes are my favorite stories to escape into. Always have been, I don’t even have to try with them. My attention is rapt, my imagination, vivid. The subject is intimacy and I am an eager student. These days, I keep thinking how understanding and cultivating intimacy might be the single most important personal project of (this phase of) my life. The implications of this craving are going to be left for me, my journal and future therapist to grapple with. But going back to what I meant by saying I want love to find me, undoubtedly, specifying like this in my mind- that by love, I mean the feeling of shared intimacy with another person- is one of the big epiphanies of the past year for me. I enjoy (love) romance novels so much because intimacy is always distilled onto the page in its rawest form. You never have to go searching, its always just right there- naked and alive. Friendship and lust- what more could a girl want?
I think, interestingly, intimacy also holds up as a potential answer to the question of self love not just romantic love. Close familiarity, or friendship with the self. Being your own friend. And what is that then? What does it mean to be a good friend? Are these answers just hardwired in us? Or are we meant to each take the time to deliberately untangle the chaos of our daily experiences, untangle everything from everything else in order to fashion some sort of answer. I don’t know that I know the answer myself but I think maybe it starts with not glossing over the parts of myself that aren’t obviously beautiful when I take stock of my life. I think it starts with giving myself the same non-judgmental acceptance and grace that I give to people whose presence in my life I value. My beautiful, dark, twisted reality.
In 2021, I finally decided to (learn to) take responsibility. This seems like an obvious thing, but its hard to do with no practice. And I would say I have had very little practice with responsibility for my own self. The culture and subcultures I was raised in didn’t encourage it much- there was always a script to follow even if nobody could tell you why or where it all came from. Today however, plopped smack in the middle of my life, I am faced with the reckoning that I’m responsible for so much, the magnitude of it makes the breath in my chest hitch to think about it sometimes. Its finally begun to sink in that I cannot shirk these responsibilities. They are mine, for better or worse. All the gritty, tough to look at parts of my life, my shortcomings, the traumas that mark me, the wins that buoy me.
A little more than halfway through Joan Didion’s essay On Self-Respect, she says of people who respect themselves: “They are willing to invest something of themselves; they may not play at all, but when they do play, they know the odds.” This definition is stark, unambiguous. Her words hold a very bright beam towards the reader: do you act with self-respect? Do I act with respect for the reality I live in? Maybe not. Maybe not always. I’m working on it though.
I am not sure that the journey towards romance and responsibility follow the same path and I have a feeling(and a hope) that 2022 will have a lot of opportunities for both. I know I’ll have to choose sometimes, many times, but I’m starting to feel like this is the year I get familiar with life’s other pleasures. Sure, I’ll spend more time this year deciphering more parts of the whole of what love is, but I’ll also need to focus my energy on those pleasures that are not immediately gratifying. Pleasures you only get to unwrap after several days and nights of gruelling discipline. The pleasures of self actualization.
I’m excited.
