20 Things I Learned in 2020
No intros. No previews. Like 2020 – I’m about to just jump in and hit the ground running.
The last day of the 2020 sign being up in Times Square in New York City; December 2020.
1. If you can’t let go, there’s a reason
If there’s a person or a situation that you still can’t let go of even after trying what feels like everything under the sun – there’s usually a reason…
… it means it’s not over yet. Keep fighting for what the heart wants.
2. Friends & Family are not my priority
A lot of people this year learned what their priorities are. For some (for most), they realized this year that it’s spending quality time with friends or family.
I always wanted to be that person; like everyone else in this sense. I wanted to value friends and family, and I wanted their presence to be the sweet peace that would make everything okay.
But they’re just not, and they never will be for me.
It’s more important to me to like where I live and to feel good about what I’m doing during the day.
I prioritize my environment and being by myself, and it took me a while to understand that that’s okay.
3. People – no matter how special – can’t get you though it
Your mom can’t save you. Your dad can’t save you. Your friends can’t save you. Your significant other can’t save you.
Only you can save you.
Every time you’re reaching for the phone or trying to get, ‘advice’ from someone – the truth is, your inner light already knows the answer.
Which brings me to…
4. You are your own tour guide to this life
No one knows you better than yourself. What do you need? What needs fixing? How are you going to glue it back together?
Now go do it. And shove the cell phone in the drawer while you’re at it.
5. Nothing is definitive
Saying someone isn’t meant for you, that you’re going on vacation to that cool exotic place next summer, or knowing what you’re doing this weekend are all things up in the air.
This life screams impermanence; its puzzle pieces are constantly shifting to fit the new, even-more-terse-than-the-last molds.
Nothing knows anything for sure. Nothing is set in a stone. Nothing is definite.
We’re all watching the script being written in real time; expected to shift to improv-style-acting at any moment’s notice.
6. Life does not give fairytale endings
Some people get the guy, they get the job, they get their dream apartment or home on the first shot – and then some people are left constantly scramming in circles chasing after that fantasy in their head.
I’m the latter – and it used to kill me even more than it did now. It’ll never not hurt, but there are silver linings I have tried to paint for myself.
Before, I couldn’t understand why my best friends would have the boyfriends, or why they’d get fired from one job and weeks later have another one in their hands.
It sounds like asking for a pity party, but in reality – I’ve learned that it’s my truth, and in all honesty…. if I had it all, if I were happy & content across the board in all areas of my life… what the hell would I write about?
Creating is my sense of purpose; and artistic catharsis more often than not comes from pain.
Vicissitude is my constant parallel, and instead of continuing to fight it… I have decided to begin to make my peace with it.
It’s not until the end of this year that I realized I better just get started getting used to living with it. I will learn to be so much happier in life knowing it will always be walking by my side than to constantly get angry at its presence.
Embrace the misfortune that follows. A lot of life is just learning to dance in the rain.
And you know what? I’ve been a lot happier the past month with coming to terms that I do not have those picture perfect happy endings – because you can’t get mad at what you accept and learn to understand.
As long as I have my personal, basic needs met (living alone, living in a city) I know that I will be just fine.
Luck is neither good nor bad – it’s just something you either have, or don’t.
Learning to live with unluckiness and neutralize the emotions that it carries will be my new mindset.
7. I hate suburban living
I have spent my whole life being the epitome of a city girl stuck in the suburbs.
I always knew I needed to dwell in an urban setting, but it wasn’t until the end of the year I realized just how much I despise the suburbs.
Suburban living, especially in the fairly wealthy suburbs that I was raised in around the country – represent a plethora of things in life that I don’t want: like marriage, kids, home-owning, and high-paying jobs that come with copious contracts of stress.
You know how they say your friends are a reflection of who you are?
I think that where you live is an even bigger reflection of who you are. Where you live reflects your values… and that if you don’t live somewhere that matches your values in life… you’re going to suffer.
I like coming home to a tiny apartment, where if I want water in the middle of the night – the walk to my kitchen is just a few steps away from my bedroom.
I like CVS being down the street if I need something.
I love not having a car and feeling so autonomous wandering by foot in a big city.
Once this waiting phase of my life is finally over – I don’t see myself living in a suburb…. ever again.
8. Therapy isn’t for everyone
I know how controversial this can be, especially with mental health being a highlight of 2020 given its circumstances – to the extent that I feel the phrase, “mental health” is almost trendy.
For my generation (Gen Z and people in their late teens or early to mid-twenties) I feel that it’s almost taboo if you don’t have a therapist.
This past summer I saw some of my darkest days, so I gave it a go – and in complete honesty, to put it in laymen’s terms – it didn’t do shit.
Back in November, my Aussie friend told me something on the phone that I’ll remember for all of my life,
“There are some people that it’s their mentality, and their way of thinking, and they just change their thinking and they keep pushing through… and then there are some people who need a change in their environment, and that sounds right about where you’re at now.”
I didn’t have many people validating what my Aussie friend was telling me, who was encouraging me to go to New York for a couple of months.
I tried a few months of therapy even though I knew deep down that it would never avail to no change in my thinking or how depressed I was feeling.
I had a lot… a lot of friends try to convince me that it was simply, “the wrong therapist” and that I needed to keep searching until I found one that, “fit”.
I know myself, and I know that I’m too stubborn for those, “coping mechanisms” that work for so many people.
I would go as far to say that a team of therapist couldn’t ever get me to change my thinking.
I needed a breath of fresh air; I needed somewhere to be that coincided closer to what I want out of my life.
I needed a change; even if it wasn’t the change I had been hoping for since December of 2019.
Ever since I was sixteen, I had taken trips to New York City whenever I had been disappointed or heartbroken. It was the only thing for months that I knew deep down would have any effect on how hard the past year and a half of my life has been.
And here I am. Writing to you from my temporary home in the West Village of Manhattan. I’ve been here for a month – living alone for the first time ever and I can’t remember the last time I’ve felt this settled.
The truth is… the last month has probably been one of the best of my life, and that’s because I’m finally getting a taste of achieving one of my biggest goals… to be financially independent and to live alone.
People have different ways of coping, and if there should be a big takeaway for everyone this year – it’s that people have different ways of handling the pain in their life, and we need to respect the various mechanisms in which the people we care about decide to cope.
TL;DR – Gen Z people need to stop getting disappointed in their friends when therapy may not be the answer to their problems.
9. Without your sense of purpose, you will lose your sense of self.
And without your sense of self, all meaning will be lost.
It’s not a fun time. I advise you to do whatever it is that you can to preserve that… because things – like therapy, or getting a job for the sake of saving money – are often not the answers to finding a way to have it.
10. I don’t want what’s easy.
I want what’s interesting, new, unfamiliar – and exciting.
If I don’t teeter out of my comfort zone, I stay the same.
Why would you ever want what’s easy in life?
Where’s the fun in that?
Where’s the adventure, in that?
When it’s in my control – I always get what I want because I refuse to ever settle for anything less.
11. I fucking love living alone
The cussing is necessary, because the joy is that real.
For the first time at 22, I’ve finally gotten the chance to live alone.
I clean my own stove burner, I scrub my own toilet, and I lug my own toilet paper from the Target in Tribeca all the way to my temporary home in the West Village.
I watch YouTube videos in absolute silence, I wake up in silence, and I go to sleep in silence.
I shower whenever I want to, and I eat dinner whenever I want to.
And I fucking love it.
There’s a sweet line between independence and feeling stagnant. It’s amazing how such mundane tasks can make you feel so good and so sure about yourself.
12. Goals have to be accomplished one at a time
Growing up in a privileged suburb really harmed me. While I am grateful that I grew up in family financially well off to live in that sweet bubble – the bubble really hurt me, because I watched things get handed to most of my peers.
In real life, things don’t get handed to you. You don’t get the massive, expensive piece of artwork to hang in your living room right away.
It’s more like paint-by-the-numbers. Your focus has to be on filling in one color at a time.
For some of my friends, the romantic relationship was most important – so that’s what they got.
For one of my best friends, work and establishing herself in her profession was most important to her – so she put all her effort the past two years into school, and a job in her field is what she got.
For me, it’s been to travel the world while I had easier means to do it, and to then move out and experience independence for the first time.
I’m still fighting for the second part of my first goal – and I can’t go for goals number two, three, or four until I achieve goal number one first.
Your baseline of needs have to be the first thing that comes to mind. Just keep being free, go for your goals in order of importance, and the rest will come with time.
13. New York City will always be my most pivotal place.
The city doesn’t have my heart, but it sure has my head. It has my sense of logic, hope, and a constant sense of neutrality.
This will be a place I will always come home to. I am part New Yorker and I always will be.
I really think I was meant to come here before making it to Paris to reset on what’s really important in my own life.
Watching the sunset at Hudson River Pier Park; December 2020
The city has saved me so many times in the valleys of my life. Sense and sensibility are both important; Manhattan will always have the first.
14. I need a balance of staying home and going out
I am not a homebody, but I’m not an all-night-city-goer either. I need dead even, equal time on foot outside as I do being a couch potato playing Club Penguin and watching YouTube.
Luckily – as long as I’m always in a city, it’s easy to have both.
15. Video creating might be my biggest passion
If I could have my dream job, I’d love to make YouTube videos for a full time living.
Essentially – what I’ve been doing here in Manhattan, except getting paid for it.
I spent all year making my first 1 Second a Day For a Year video… and while it didn’t come out anything like I had planned it to, I’m glad that I didn’t give up on it.
Though my artistic vision for the video had to change, it kept me doing something every day this year. Even the days that I was crying, unable to get out of my bed due to a serious depression – I still made sure that I filmed something for one second.
Every. Single. Day.
I have never been prouder of a project. I’ve never put more work into something, and most of all – I can’t wait for next year’s to be even better.
16. People do change.
It just takes a lot of time; evolution is gradual – not instant.
You know it’s the same for yourself, so don’t expect it to be overnight for other people either.
17. 22 is so young
I was walking towards seventh avenue the other day bypassing Bleecker street realizing how much life I have to go.
I feel a lot more like ninety-two than twenty-two. It genuinely freaks me out that I haven’t made so much as a dent to my time here.
Even thirty is still so young… and I’ve still got some ways to go until I get there.
Just… shit. What am I to do with all this time?
How am I supposed to survive all that time?
I’m not sure, man. I’ll just worry about each step as I take it from here on out.
18. Life needs to be taken one day at a time.
I’m not sure. I know I told this to myself in May 2019 when all hell began to break lose for me, but I don’t think it was until the end of this year that I’ve really made my peace with the concept.
I used to fantasize about my life one, two, or even five years down the line… and while I’d still love to plan everything about 2021 – I can’t with the state of the world.
No one can.
I have absolutely no idea what will happen in my life one month from now, or one week from now.
These days, I try to just worry about the day in front of me… and I think I like it better this way.
19. Things we think will never change, do.
I used to use SpongeBob, bubble fruit toothpaste every single day of my life until this year – stuck in my house, with nothing else to do, giving my brother’s clean mint by Crest a try out of boredom and a need for change.
I swore I would always find mint toothpaste disgusting, and here I am now… using it every night.
Things we never think will change do. The outcome can surprise us if we just keep going with the flow.
20. 2020 is too catastrophic a year to pick apart
This year was a headache. I didn’t think a calendar year could feel this long.
Going to Japan at the top of the year, listening to Chelsea Cutler’s new album in the Tokyo airport, starting my last semester of college, and getting my wisdom teeth taken out feel more like three years ago.
Too many bad things happened to the world to even begin to see it as a life lesson.
I don’t think anyone needs to feel bad about isolating one, grandiose thing that they learned this year.
In all honesty – I can’t tell you one thing that I learned this year. I’m making a long list of things I’ve noticed along the way, but I don’t have a big, over-arching statement to tell someone… and that’s okay.
No one is more ready for a new year than me. I have been disappointed and heartbroken too many times to count for too long, and I am ready to see if the third time really is the charm.
2019 was a heartache with a headache.
2020 was my living nightmare with a migraine that couldn’t help but make me cry.
2021 might just be the same thing with a new number… or can it really get better?
The first day of the 2021 sign being up in Times Square in New York City; December 2020.
No one knows, but I do know that by this point – my pure, sheer curiosity for what else could change is what keeps me going.
We’ll just have to wait and see what else the world could have up its sleeve.