journal

A Letter to 2020.

As I sit, now, in 2021, and look back at my experiences across 2020, there is no single word that completely summarizes my feelings toward this period of time in my life. The year dealt me heartache, but also made my heart full; I encountered both loneliness and warm closeness; I suffered great personal losses and moments of abundance and wins as well.

I believe that nothing is fully good and that nothing is fully bad — many things — no, most things — exist in duality. 2020 presented as a duality of a unique nature. A nature that is hard to appreciate without specifically mapping out the light that was experienced from it in addition to the extreme darkness.

I experienced 2020 in different buckets. Some of the buckets occurred in linear cycles. Others happened in little pockets of the year, only to return when least expected. Many people claim that they wouldn’t change a thing if given a re-do button on any portion of their lives. Let’s be clear — that is not me. If given an opportunity to re-do certain parts of the past year of my life, I would undoubtedly take it. For my health… for my sanity. But I also understand that much of what I experienced contributed greatly to my growth. I recall some of these experiences in the passages that follow.

The Heartache. | The Joy. | The Wins. | The Loss. | The Love.

The Heartache.

The heartache came first. And hard. The beginning of what would eventually grow into a very tiring year was extremely difficult for me. My self-esteem was at one of its lowest points, my sense of worth was severely diminished, but it was on the first day of the new year that I finally decided to choose myself. I was tired of giving and giving only to receive nothing in return; on the receiving end of fleeting feelings; words that didn’t match actions; embarrassment and being intentionally hurt in public ways. I wanted better. I wanted more.

I wanted to finally feel and be appreciated openly and not just in the comfort of private messages and calls that other potential suitors purposely couldn’t hear — and not by someone who was more concerned with openly admiring others who barely paid them any mind, or willing to subliminally send extremely hurtful messages on Twitter for everyone to see (albeit, the whole affair was made to be private, so nobody really knew that they were disparaging you). I deserved to be loved out loud and I figured that if someone else couldn’t do that for me, I’d do it for my damn self.

This is where the “fresh start” came in. New year, new me… right? In 2020, the term took on a whole new meaning for me. I washed myself of the connection that made me more depleted than it did fulfilled. I took a long break from spaces that prevented me from focusing and tending to every part of me. I deleted social media apps, removed myself from online groups, and deactivated accounts. I truly took the time I needed to not only rid myself of what I felt was a toxic attachment at the time, but also to come into realization of what it was that I wanted and needed out of life.

I’m not absolved of my role in the heartache. Some of it, I dealt to myself. Instead of pulling myself out of the situation when it became strikingly obvious that I would continue to get hurt, I persisted. There were things that I could have done to ensure a better outcome… to have protected myself when it was clear that I wasn’t being loved in the way I felt that I was loving; to have tried harder to meet in the middle. But some “middles” just don’t deserve to be met. And while, like in almost any situation, I could have been more polished in my approach, that doesn’t warrant the mishandling of me at the hands of another. 

I’ve forgiven myself for staying when I saw it for what it was. I’ve forgiven the person for knowingly being careless with my already guarded emotions. But forgiveness is difficult when the source of the hurt remains present in one’s day to day—especially when the hurt was never acknowledged nor corrected by the source. I still struggle with this part of my 2020 (and 2019, honestly), but I often remember to remind myself that healing is not linear. Eventually, the day will come where I will look up and realize that I no longer hurt from that source. I’m hoping that the day will arrive soon.

As it pertains to love, I am vowing to minimize my “could-haves,” “should-haves,” and “would-haves” going forward. I know that I have missed out on potential happiness due to my own carefulness. I have missed out on connections due to my own reluctance to be vulnerable with both my emotional self and physical self. I vow   to open myself to being seen and the opportunity to see others.

The Joy.

Following the heartache and taking the space I needed in order to move on and move forward, I found joy. I rediscovered what it meant to be me. What it felt like to at least be semi-free.

I lived a little. Reconnected with friends; went out on dates that were just that and nothing more; began expanding my network in my new city of residence. Relearned healthy attachments to everything in my life: food, social media, romantic relationships, my overall lifestyle, my career. I discovered that I love playing Call of Duty for hours on end, especially while on FaceTime with a suitor who bonded with me about the smallest and largest of things while we ran lobbies of the game. I realized that I am enough as I am and that better things for me are always in store. The more time went on, I saw that everything I desired was at my fingertips — I just needed to be brave enough to take steps towards them. To close doors that I knew did not serve me in order to find and open new ones.

Somewhere amidst my joy, I picked up my passion for writing again. This time, it was in the form of daily gratitude journaling. I signed up for (and won!) a free spot in a course hosted by my favorite self-care influencer, which consisted of a community of people who were all in search of the same thing, albeit on different paths. During this course, I relearned what it meant to write for fun and for self. It was an enlightening experience for me in many ways—one which ultimately led me here.

The Wins.

In the same breath as the joy, I won. In the earlier part of the year (during the much needed hiatus), I celebrated the major milestone of passing a state Bar exam and becoming a licensed attorney. Finally adding the “Esq.” to my legal name and confirming the “Esquire” listed in many of my social media tags was like breathing a breath of fresh air. After feeling defeated, insecure, and directionless leaving 2019, I needed to feel I had won something — that, somehow, I had gained more than I had let go — and this at least got me closer. 

I later celebrated two more significant wins. At the very end of the year, I crossed off two of my 2020 goals: I built a desktop computer and purchased the car of my (current) dreams. After having my own vehicle fail on me on Christmas Eve as I attempted to drive to my hometown to spend the holiday with my family, this felt like a major milestone. Now, let me be honest: I did not do the physical computer building. Nor did I complete the car buying process alone. But what I did contribute to finally getting these projects off of the ground was a major success in my book.

In addition to those two very clear successes, I was also blessed to celebrate other professional wins. Coming off of the win in 2019, where I was cited as a published author on CNN, I was cited even more by other journalists and academics across the globe. 

When I was young, I dreamed of becoming a writer. I would write poetry, short stories… really, anything that was on my mind. But I never really believed that someday my words would be sought out by others the way that they are now. Of all of my wins in the past couple of years, I can say that this one probably means the most. To be affirmed in the fact that I have a voice; that other people care what I have to say; that my thoughts have intellectual value in the world… I’m inspired now to continue creating and to allow my voice to be heard in all ways possible.

The Loss.

Loss most times is immeasurable. The feeling of having lost something (or someone) that meant so much to you is heavy. It is a heaviness that is incomparable to anything else in the world. For many, 2020 was full of loss—physically, spiritually, and figuratively. For me, it was all three.

The loss swooped in swiftly and all at once. First, it hit my best friend of many years. Then, it hit one of my closest friends in my group of ‘Day 1s’. Next, it happened to me directly. And finally, it hit my best friend since adolescence. Each loss occurred within a month of each other. It was crushing.

When the loss first arrived, it was sudden. As an emotional sponge (an empath, as many would call it) I felt it deeply, although it really had nothing to do with me. Seeing my friends lose their grandparents and parents, who I’d also spent many moments with across the years of our close friendships, was frightening. Something I continue to struggle greatly with as I come into myself in my adult years is coming to terms with the fact that the people around me are getting older. That the people who I love most won’t always be around. I’ve belabored over this idea—obsessed, really—and, honestly, nothing has been able to comfort me in this fear. And seeing it happen to the friends who I have chosen as family only made it more real.

I felt guilty for feeling that the loss of their family members was so personal to me. That I was more affected than what made sense, given I wasn’t related to them at all. I just guess that when the people closest to me are hurting, it’s impossible for me to not hurt too.

Part of this feeling, though, was my own guilt for not being able to physically be with most of them through these losses. After all, I, too, was experiencing my own sort of loss. The pandemic had hit me personally and directly and my anxiety about my own health and future took over. I was angry. Angry that after behaving as a person who had any moral sensibility should have behaved all year, it still happened to me. I was resentful. Resentful of the fact that others in my life were so irresponsible, yet hadn’t been punished directly like I had. I was bitter that people who claimed they cared weren’t doing enough to ensure that I was okay. For all we knew, I could have been here today and gone the next… so where was the extended concern? My mental health took a huge decline as anxieties overtook me. And being physically alone through it all only added a very rancid icing to the top of the cake.

I’m thankful for the support that I did receive and for the people who made it a point to let me know again and again that I wasn’t alone. If you are reading and you know this is you, then, again, thank you. I see you. I appreciate you. Although I’m doing better, both mentally and physically, it’s still hard to not carry the anger and resentment with me. I try to remind myself daily to not let the loss take over. To not let anxieties, fear, and resentment consume me so much that I can’t see the light behind it.

The Love.

The best part had to be the love. The redeeming factor. My reason for pushing on.

It sounds cliché, but loss has a way of bringing things together—of putting things into perspective. My personal losses and tragedies of 2020 made me learn to appreciate all that I had available to me; to see the possibility of good in the most impossible of situations.

Finding love in my family and friends in the darkness, especially after The Loss, was healing. I was reminded of:

  • all of the reasons why my chosen family were indeed family to me;
  • how we manage to be there for each other, no questions asked, through the toughest of times and life events;
  • how lucky I am to have been blessed with such a supportive and loving circle of human beings;
  • how much I value those closest to me even when they disappoint me—and how far they’ll go to remind me how special I was to them;
  • the way that support sometimes comes from the most unlikely places and in forms that you do not expect; and most importantly,
  • the truth that I am not alone, even when I feel I am.

There’s usually a light on the other side. I’d like to believe that I have found it or soon will.