Everything will probably be okay, as long as your idea of “okay” isn’t too rigid. Dad and I were joking about how nothing in 2021 went as planned but it’s pretty okay. It was one of the most painful and beautiful years of my life.
When I was a teenager I thought the thing that would make it okay was getting married. I was sure that once I got married my mental health would be better, my career would fall into place around my family and I would live happily ever after. Well in January, my husband and I separated and are currently in the process of filing for divorce. Divorced at 25 was not in the plan. Not the okay I had in mind.
So I moved back in with my parents, spent some time painting and a lot of time in therapy. Thank God for my therapist. And Taylor Swift who thought this was the year to re-release all her old albums and as many 20-30 somethings will tell you…that stuff hits harder now that we can listen to it with a glass of wine and some real breakups behind us.
My sisters and I spent the summer getting ready for a major milestone! First year of university! Yup, I am a first-year (or fresher to the English) for the third time in 8 years (not the okay I had in mind!). Studying psychology, as any good mentally ill person does. I am going to university just outside London at my father’s alma mater. The first time I started university, I hurt myself so badly that it scared me off cutting. The last time I lived overseas, I started cutting. Needless to say, I was nervous for what this might mean for my mental health. Not to mention the social and academic consequences of being nearly 10 years older than my peers and not having looked at a science textbook since grade 10 biology.
Bringing us to the present, Christmas Eve. I had so many plans, wonderful plans, for this break. Some of them I got to do and a whole bunch of them got screwed when myself and 2/3 of my family got Omicron. Now we’re in the process of figuring out how to salvage Christmas over the course of January since there’s a decent chance I can’t go back to school for a bit. Maybe this Christmas will just suck, in which case that’s okay because everyone has gone or is going through something similar and it’ll be a memory to talk about in a few years. However, there is also a distinct chance that as long as we don’t hold on to what this is supposed to look like too tightly, it might all work out pretty okay.
Please enjoy my rendition of the 12 days of Christmas as my 2021 year
In the year 2021, life hit me with…
1 separation
2 lawyers filing
3 undergrads moving
4 walls painted
5 positive tests
6 favourite songs
7 brilliant flatmates
8 shows rewatched
9 events cancelled
10 full-fledge breakdowns
11 trips to Tesco
12 months of chaos
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