A Game Changer for New Perspectives
Before the start of the new year in each of my journals, I always reflect in hopes of understanding how I’ve grown through the year. This year, I’ve found it extremely difficult to sit down and even begin to think about the past twelve months. So much so, that I’ve avoided it as I’ve done with many things. I’ve avoided confronting the whirlwind of emotions I’ve experienced this semester. I’ve avoided thinking about the moments that have challenged me at my core. I’ve avoided accepting the crumbling downfall of the optimism I once had for 2020.
I’ve been in this back-and-forth state of figuring out where to even start reflecting on a year that slowly began to resemble a life-sucking day-to-day cycle. In a way, I’d become accustomed to these inevitable emotions in the new normal of the pandemic. Regardless, a question I always ask myself around this time is what’s the most important lesson you learned this year? In a time where my life has simultaneously felt stagnant but tumultuous each day, I still feel like there were heavy lessons that left their mark in impactful ways.
The most important lesson I learned this year resembled more as a bleak truth- a truth that maybe I’m not as mentally strong as I thought I was, a quality so tightly stitched into my identity.
September felt like the start of an uphill climb that never seemed to peak. Initially, I assumed it was due to the abrupt adjustment from life in quarantine to the chaos back at school with new responsibilities. I could also honestly blame the entirety of organic chemistry too. But as much overlooked that feeling, the underlying mental burden I carried every day for the rest of the semester soon manifested in its own damaging ways. I thought that after each deadline and each test I’d be able to pick myself up like I’d so easily been able to before. However, every few weeks I’d demand so much from myself that I would fall from the climb, looking back up at the mountain from rock bottom. When I looked in the mirror, I saw a fraud. I preached to my friends about taking care of themselves through this time, by journaling and writing affirmations to put in their spaces but failed to take that advice for myself when I needed it the most. Above all, I was working on building this blog around personal growth, encouraging people to do the things I couldn’t do.
I recently discovered this song titled “Khoj”, a roughly translated Hindi word for “search”. It details this particular freeing feeling humans so longingly search for in their lives. There are so many things I’ve searched for this year. That search has encompassed a sense of stability, a pursuit for the life that’s been suddenly stripped from us physically through the pandemic and emotionally through its effects. There’s been a search for feeling authentically alive, as my roommate quoted on her Instagram story a few months ago.
A simple question of “what makes you feel authentically alive?” forced me to think of what brings me peace at a fundamental level, what changes the narrative for that uphill climb I have to make.
Thus far, my favorite has been sitting on the ledge of my dorm window at midnight listening to music. Another has been driving down US-40 with all the windows down or basking in the afternoon sun that floods my room. More notably, it’s been recognizing and addressing my struggles through writing.
This year, I have developed a completely different perspective on my mental strength in the face of challenges. More importantly, my outlook on what fuels my mental strength has evolved. Before I could see it for myself, it was these moments that became my short stretches of life on my emptiest days.
Personal Reflections 
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