2022

I look back on my year and I see two different people: the one who started it, and the one who’s ending it and writing to you right now. I know it’s kind of a cliche, “I’m ending the year a different person than I was when it started,” but it’s true. I look at who I was at the start of 2022, and I am a complete stranger to her. She didn’t know what was coming and how drastically she would be affected by all the changes she would encounter, big or small. She was happy. She had her shit together (for the most part), and she was doing well in school, satisfied with her day-to-day and the circle of friends she had to accompany her. At the beginning, she was content with where she was in life and she was looking forward to the change that she had had a feeling was coming for some time (talk about intuition)… 

That change did come, it definitely did, but it did not come in the ways she expected. How could it? Change is never the way we expect it. One thing that this version of myself has in common with me now is that we still think we can be an exception to that rule of prediction. Perhaps in 2023 she will learn…

There’s a lot of highlights that I am leaving with from 2022, and I don’t mean highlights in the sense of a highlight reel that displays all of your best moments. These highlights are any events, emotions, or people that impacted me the most and taught some tough, but valuable lessons that turned me into the version of myself that I am now. 

New inspiration…

I met a lot of new people in 2022. For me, that’s rare. I tend to have the same circle of friends for some time, and I mainly owe that to the fact that I am extremely introverted and hate being in new social situations. 2022 opened that door a bit for me. And because of it, I am ending the year with people I didn’t even know existed at the start of it, and I couldn’t be more grateful.

I worked at a coffee shop in my downtown during the summer. Yes, it was just a barista job, but it really was a concealed blessing. This job brought me some of the most genuine and enjoyable people that I now have the privilege of calling my friends. Despite the usual work complaints, this job was a source of inspiration and motivation. If it weren’t for this job, if I had not been immersed in an environment that surrounded me with a group of such supportive and encouraging people whose work ethics and passions rubbed off on me, I can’t say that I would still have ended up writing this. If it weren’t for those coworkers - both the ones who are still around and still inspiring, and the ones who aren’t - I would not have committed to my blog the way that I did. Without this exposure to these particular people, blubird may have never come to fruition. And boy, am I glad it did.

To those people, I want to say thank you. Thank you for helping inspire me to create this, and thank you for having the drive within yourselves to chase after whatever it is that you want…

Loneliness…

I made the impulsive decision earlier on in the year to transfer to my school’s campus in NYC with my roommate. If you told me this a year ago I would have laughed in your face. Never did I ever expect myself to voluntarily - and excitedly - move to the city. I have never liked the city. It’s cramped, stinky, and overwhelming, a place that I absolutely do not have the patience for. Don’t ask me what it was that changed, because to this day I still don’t know, but all I know now is that decision has changed my life.

Moving to the city introduced me to a new sense of independence, one that I knew I was in for, but not one that I could have ever prepared for. Having grown up, my entire life, in the same house in the same suburban town definitely did not mold me into someone who is easily adaptable to change - especially when that change is an overpriced, tiny, two-bedroom apartment at the bottom of Manhattan. The entire past four months of living in the city has probably been the biggest highlight of my year - for good and for bad. I’m sure this setup sounds like a luxury to many of you - an apartment in NYC is a dream for a lot of people. For me, I have never felt more alone…

I don’t know what it was that made my mental health take such a turn at the start of the semester. I felt it coming on prior to my moving in, but I didn’t realize how big of a low I was about to hit. Maybe it was the passing of my childhood dog, my companion since I can remember, and then abandoning every sense of home that I had left after he was gone. Maybe it sounds dramatic, and maybe it was as simple as seasonal depression. Whatever it was, it kicked me in the ass.

I spent a majority of my time living in the city sitting in my room rewatching the same three shows that I always do. When I went to campus twice a week, I left immediately after my class got out, seeking the comfort of my own space. The windows to my room were about four feet away from the cement wall of the building next door, so I lived in darkness. I ate my meals in my bed, wrote my papers while watching The Office, and felt accomplished by my biweekly trips to Trader Joe’s. I cried most nights out of mental exhaustion, felt numb during the day, and never seemed to get enough sleep, whether I slept through my classes or not. 

At the beginning of October, I started journaling. Not super consistently, but way more than I expected myself to be able to commit to. I’d like to say I’m proud of myself for that. While I haven’t picked it up in some time, I’m grateful for the outlet it provided me when I used it. One of the things I wrote down at the beginning of my journal was, “I don’t know how to break the cycle of residing in comfort…” I’d really like to follow up that quote by telling you that, since then, I’ve figured it out. But I haven’t. And it remains to be my biggest battle.

Residing in this comfort, though, gave me even more time to indulge in the overwhelming noise inside my head. I went down a lot of dark roads in the last few months, ones that seemed to have no end. The way I see this time of my life is a dark tunnel - no start, no end, no way to know where you’re headed, but all you have is the knowledge that you are in this tunnel.

Being so consumed by such darkness and oppressive thoughts, I was at the most vulnerable state that I have ever been in. I traveled back home nearly every other weekend to escape the loneliness and get a little taste of familiarity and comfort. One of the weekends I was home, my mom asked me if I was happy (obviously knowing the answer was no). I sat there on the recliner shaking my feet as I looked at her and my dad. It took some time, but I eventually mustered up an answer, “I don’t know.” Hearing myself blatantly lie to everyone in the room, including myself, I immediately broke down in tears. I told them what was wrong. 

I feel so alone. Nothing is clicking. It feels like I’m living life on autopilot. Everything is grey. 

That was the most honest I had been to my parents about my mentality in a very long time, and it was something I was avoiding for way too long. This admission of defeat and vulnerability was the first step to finding some fresh air for myself. It was this conversation that led to making the decision that I needed to take a break from school, take a semester off. Figure my life out and figure myself out. 

Having always led my life as a hard-working student who usually excelled in the classroom, it felt a little defeating to reach the point where I felt I had no other choice than to take a step away from school. I’ve also never been at a point in my life where I have wanted to or felt I needed to really focus on myself - I’m sure I’ve said it before, but this one was much more real. And so I was very nervous about admitting this. But in an instant, it became the biggest saving grace of my year. The solution that I didn’t know even existed to my constant state of emptiness is what changed the course of the last few months and, ultimately, turned my life around, or at least a little bit.

To my person…

After some fog cleared and the future looked a little more optimistic and much less intimidating, there was a big shift in my daily life. Much of it stemmed from this weight that was lifted off me - knowing that I was going to be given the breathing room I needed, it changed my outlook drastically. I guess there was some momentum to this discovered solution, because in this same timeframe, I was reaching a new peak.

I sparked a new friendship at the beginning of November. (For the sake of keeping some personal touches to this story, I will not be naming the friend. Close ones will know them, and so will they, and that’s all that matters.) In a very short amount of time, this friend became my new comfort.

It’s a beautiful thing to meet someone who sees the world through the same lens that you do. Someone who contemplates the same curiosities, mirrors your humor, identifies with your emotions, and shares the same passion that you have for art. Somebody that, in every way, shape, and form, is just what you needed right when they presented themselves to you. One of those unexpected changes to your life that seems to make the looming darkness not so constraining. The person who becomes your sunshine. The one that gives you hope in the trajectory of your path, provides a kind of guidance when you’re lost and fills you with warmth again after having been left out in the cold for far too long…

The first night we spent together we went to a small concert in SoHo. For the next month and a half, we went to four more concerts and spent nearly every day together… literally. In such a short time, they became my person, the one who kept me excited to be here and someone I could never get sick of. I had the best night of my year with this person. I know that there are no words that would make this night sound nearly as special as it was to me, so I will save those details for more personal reflection. But what I can say, and what I want to say, is that this night reminded me of everything that life has to offer that makes it worth sticking around for. Things that stand out to be what I truly find the most valuable within myself and in my relationships - all of the little bits and pieces that make up the big, beautiful picture - they were all apparent that night. Music, laughter, spontaneity, vulnerability, companionship, understanding. These things come easy with them, and there’s such an effortlessness to how they can rectify my loneliness and make me feel absolutely and completely seen and cared for.

To them, I want to say thank you. Thank you for being there for me and for seeing me. Thank you for being the returning sunshine to my life and always keeping me on my toes. You’ve brought the excitement back to my life and I genuinely could never get tired of you…

Energy conservation…

Throughout this all, I’ve been picking up a lot of lessons along the way in 2022. Which is actually funny to say after my mom had recently just shared a story the other day about how I’ve always hated taking lessons. As a kid, I refused to partake in them and threw a fit until I got my way out of it. I think 2022 reminded me of the importance of learning lessons, at least the big life ones that truly leave an impact.

I’ve struggled a lot with sharing my energy - sometimes I share too much too fast and other times not enough. It’s a difficult thing to figure out when or how to filter yourself and for whom. Trust and understanding is a tricky thing, and even when I think it’s there, I look back on relationships that I regret having let myself loose in. 

I’m still learning who to share my energy with. For those of you who I have shared it with and protected it, thank you. For those of you who I have shared it with and lost it, thank you, too, for teaching me how to save it for those that matter most. It may be one big guessing game, but I think this year, especially based on who I’m ending it with, has proved that my luck has really been turning around.

To 2023…

The reason I have been so dormant on here for so long is… well, there’s not a simple, straightforward answer to that. Definitely some writer’s block and some good ol’ procrastination. But I’d like to say it’s because I’m learning how to live my life again and take pleasure in the things that I experience. While I’m still in a rut, for sure, I’m mending other parts of my life, and that takes a lot of time and attention away from other pleasures. I’ve beaten myself up more than I should (and I will unintentionally continue to do so), but I owe this mini hiatus to part of my journey of finding myself again. There’s a beauty in it, a beauty that has taken me too long to recognize, and now that I see it, I don’t want to lose sight of it.

To 2023, I hope you are full of growth. Growth from the lessons we’ve learned in 2022, the versions of ourselves we’ve phased through, and the people that have been there and the people that we have lost along the way. 

To the people who I am entering 2023 with… thank you. From the bottom of my heart. Your company and your impact on me is everlasting. Thank you for your support, your loyalty, and your care. Thank you for making me laugh, telling me it’s okay to cry, and understanding, or at least trying to understand, the complicated mess that is my mind. I know how lonely the world can get at times, and to have you with me as a reminder that it doesn’t always have to be is more than I could ever ask for.

To myself in 2023… I’m rooting for you. You’ve come a long way, but you have even further to go. I hope you find what you’ve been looking for, or at least learn from what it is that you may or may not discover. Life is a beautiful and tragic mystery, and I hope that 2023 continues to reveal every aspect of it to you. 

Cheers.