Goodbye 2021

There is something surreal about looking back at 2021. In some ways it feels like a year that wasn’t so much complete as a rough draft, scrapping together ideas that were stapled together in a Frankenstein-style image. One piece looked hopeful, where vaccines would promise a potential return to regular life. The other reflected the first third of the year where America was still in shutdown mode, unable to predict what The Fall was going to look like. Everywhere in-between there was the mix of controversies and small beacons of hope shining through. More so than 2020, this was a year where the uncertainty turned more towards hope. As disfigured as it will always look in the analogs of history, it was one where reanimation was starting to take shape.

To live through it is an incredible experience. To live day to day in that ambiguity brought forth a strange mix of emotions. How does one possibly move on from a year that brought with it hundreds of thousands of deaths from Coronavirus, where the stability of the country continues to remain a giant question mark? The best that can be done for someone like me is to document my existence in it, to try and find the moment when meaning returns. What does that look like, when this pandemic culture becomes more a relic than everyday life? 

I’m sorry to report, but we are far from reaching any satisfying answer. All that I can provide now is a view of the past 12 months, so full of their own strange eventfulness. More than any other year (save maybe 2016), there is honest bafflement on how we got to where we are now. This isn’t to say that things have necessarily gotten worse, but to yell “2021 is the worst” feels downright disingenuous to me. Unless you were personally riddled with misfortune, it is difficult for a finite statement like that to be taken seriously. Have you not lived through 2020? Did you not take this time to reflect on your own life and build something that you’re proud of?

I don’t wish to judge too harshly. Everyone is on their own journey, and mine felt very much like a Frankensteined existence down to Mary Shelley’s pervading subtext about humanity’s loneliness and isolation. The first few months were, inarguably, one of the worst periods of my life not because I had any significant rock bottom, but because my mental health threw me into the great unknown. I didn’t start 2021 on a particularly happy note, finding myself trying to fight off depression while growing increasingly numb. The struggle to live in the moment and see any forward trajectory felt impossible. By March I had spent half of my days in bed, dissociating, and self-harming in attempts to cope. No one thing from 2020 had done this to me, but collectively the ability to survive left me bruised, unable to cope in a rational way.

The first third of this year remains the darkest, messiest period for me. Even as I was achieving goals that were years in the making, I felt useless and suffering from imposter syndrome. My writing took a backseat, meaning that I wasn’t properly coping. Even when I was attending my dream school, there was something insignificant about it all, performed on a Zoom call where it took so much effort to focus and act like I wanted to be there. I’m amazed that I passed with A’s because, again, that was some of my least inspired work as a writer. I knew that I wanted it, but my heart just wasn’t in it. It got to a point where even reading a few pages required more effort than it should’ve.

This is why I sympathize with those who openly discuss feeling alone in the modern age. For those four months, there was a paralyzed panic. I couldn’t go anywhere, see anyone, do anything. I was left at home having to stay in waiting for something greater to come. The 15 months between when I last attended a social gathering in March 2020 and June 2021 was a long hell where I not only feared the death of my friend but lost six cats as well as a high school friend who died from an overdose. For everything that I was doing, it was difficult to process any sign of hope. Between January and April, there was something torturous about living in my brain, needing to find ways to move forward while thinking that the world would inevitably kill me for my foolishness.

Some of the only comforting factors came in the form of exploring my queer identity. Those hours of staying up late were benefiting me by researching asexuality, discovering a piece of myself that felt real. Much like autism, this was a part of me that made sense. While it took some time to get past internalized aphobia, the ultimate reward came in slowly finding a community. I found comfort in watching Everything’s Gonna Be Okay and seeing Drea live a normal life. It was Aunt Miranda in Princess Cyd (2017) or Selah in Selah and the Spades (2020). There were these moments where I felt some small connection to a greater world. 

It was beautiful. I even adored the Oprah Winfrey interview with Elliot Page where he discussed his transition. I began to love seeing queer happiness and allowed myself to see it more, to talk about it on a scale that had largely been third person. It is the catharsis of Pose ending on a triumphant third season, or how Billy Porter’s vibrant personality continues to make the world feel a little better. How about Lil Nas X killing it with three amazing singles? Even in a year where those in the LGBTQIA+ community struggled, where anti-transgender bills were being announced at a more alarming rate, or the whole athlete debate, it was inspiring to see The Olympics have a gayer turnout. To see discussions of Simone Biles or Naomi Osaka about mental health felt like small victories. 

You feel validated. You feel heard. 

It is an imperfect year, but I think that I needed it in order to recognize what it truly meant to grow as a person. By accepting myself, I was able to not only notice the positives in me but the positives in the community and other letters of The Alphabet Mafia. I’ve done more to reach out and share my support, and there’s been a small joy in being acknowledged by creators who made those isolating months easier to manage. I’ll admit that being more recognizably vocal is still difficult for me, but it’s been the one thing that helped lead to change, to a desire to view the world in a much more positive light.

I force myself to be an optimist, and I think that I reached a certain threshold in 2020. Without any reward at the end of the journey, I had to ask what the bigger significance was. Why do anything? I come out of the following year with a much happier perspective. I’ve been more open and honest about what interests me, and I feel as a result my writing on a career level is more reflective of who I am. Maybe I could do with polishing language, making it less editorial, but as an energy, I sometimes look back at what I wrote months ago and am impressed with how I’m just allowing myself to consider things. Yes, my opinion does change, but the idea of opening dialogues is at least there in ways that I haven’t noticed before.

It’s true that the vaccine helped. Three shots in, I’ve felt more secure about returning to a “normal” life a little bit, even if it’s at a more conservative rate. I go to the movies, but without any frequency. I go to basketball games and theater, but only after serious consideration. I’m experiencing life again and I promise that you don’t fully appreciate the privileges of life until it has been taken away for a little bit. I know that I am very well off compared to a lot of people, that I’ve done things this year that most still can’t. Still, for me, it’s been incredible to have those moments, a sense of memory starting to bloom again.

To some extent, the greatest feeling in the world has been seeing friends again. The man that I feared would be dead showed up to a birthday outing where I saw The Music Man. It was the first of a near dozen times that I’d see him in the next five months. Still, it was phenomenal to be in his company, to hold spontaneous conversation. While being able to visit the campus of my dream school also helped boost personal morale, having someone who cared to have you in their presence and enjoy your opinion had a profound impact on my outlook. Even simple things like getting together at his house to watch Black Widow (2021) were precious to me. I hold onto them because I recognized their absence in 2020 so painfully that it ruined me to some extent.

We also got some fun superhero ace rep this year!

We have a president who at least is trying to provide options for everyone. The world is trying to change, but done so on a gradual scale that requires patience. I don’t know that Joe Biden will be the savior that this pandemic needs, but it’s a relief to have someone trying to do the right thing, to have compassion for the world around him. I’m sure that I could be critical and point out everything he’s done wrong, but at the end of the day, he’s pushed towards safer measures. Variants are still looming large, but he’s trying.

We also got TWO Lana Del Rey albums, and both of them are pretty great!

I end the year in a lot better position than I started. I am by no means completely fine still, but I’ve found better ways to cope with this strange experience. As I look back on 2021, I don’t think it feels right to say “The worst year ever.” On top of it being way too hyperbolic, I think for me it’s something completely different. It’s by no means the best or even direct middle. It’s a sliding scale that was full of disappointments and great surprises, creating something more amorphous than normal. I wish that 2021 was an easy year to summarize, but the best that can be said is that I started the year feeling hopeless and am currently hopeful.

Not hopeful in the sense that 2022 will be the year where everything turns around. Change is gradual. To improve the world takes time and effort that requires everyone’s participation. Who knows if that’ll be achieved any time soon. Still, I admire those who are fighting to try and return to that balance, who are sacrificing everything to make a small corner of the world feel safe. Thank you for everything. I hope that there are some silver linings for you in the year to come, that it doesn’t end with the familiar chimes of people reaching December 31 and saying “2022 is the worst.” 

Maybe 2022 won’t be my most eventful year comparatively. I might not overcome depression, publish another novel, come out as asexual, complete A FULL YEAR at my dream school, or remember what it’s like to be grateful to be alive. Those are things I did in 2021 and all I can do is try to make the next one full of their own accomplishments. Maybe some of them will seem familiar, but hopefully, they’ll be new now that I have a richer perspective and desire to push myself back into the productive, healthy side of things.

To those who genuinely think that 2021 was the worst, I am sorry. Hopefully for you, 2022 will have less heartache and pain in it. I know that these times have been confusing and neverending. Somedays I recognize that more clearly than others. It’s been quite a Frankenstein of a year for me personally, but I’m glad to feel myself coming back to life, to recognize that every strange patch of this year has defined me in some ways. Not all were productive, but some serve as cautionary tales, waiting for me to make sense of them. I hope 2022 brings their own challenges, but that they’re more positive, more able to make me see not only self-worth but the worth of seeing a future that’s worth living in. 

See you in 2022, everybody!