i’m simply not participating in resolutions this year

So this has been the trashiest year I've ever seen. I would say it’s been the worst, but the hellish external factors that made this year awful truly distorted my memory of everything before it. So right now, I’m going to go ahead and say with my whole chest that this year has been disgusting and foul. Now, with that out of the way I want to say that this year, like all the years before, taught me a lot. I think it’s really important to understand that we do not have to experience terrible, traumatic things (like a deadly pandemic or a president who is a white supremacist) to learn and grow. THERE ARE NICER WAYS TO LEARN THE LESSONS OF LIFE. With that considered, I can say my biggest takeaway from this year was learning to let go of what I can’t control. Has this lesson been repeated to me for my entire life? Yes. Literally, yes. But I did not truly understand it until now. This year, I did a lot of really big things. A lot of my young adult milestones were overshadowed by a plague and I had to learn to expect the unexpected and be okay with having no stability or blueprint for what was to come (a common experience for anyone who graduated in 2020). Because I was isolated for a lot of the year, I was forced to look inward. I have always tried to be reflective, but this kind of reflection was different. I was physically away from all of the expectations I once used as guidance to become who I thought I had to be. I am incredibly sad that this year ripped us apart, and I am insanely grateful that this year is coming to an end. But I know now, more than I’ve ever known before, that the new year does not always mark a new start. If anything, 2020 has only highlighted what’s been there for years. Last year around this time I was on Christmas break from high school. At that time, breaks were truly just breaks and the words “pandemic” and “quarantine” were seldom used in my vocabulary. I don’t remember much, but I do remember how long January and February felt when I got back to school. I remember celebrating my birthday in February, a few weeks before the world shut down. I remember hearing the word “covid” and thinking it would never impact my life. And then came March. I remember being so happy that high school was coming to a seemingly faster end, because I was long over it by then. I did not think that two weeks would turn in to a year and that a year could be so hard. The summer was full of racism, clearer than I’ve ever seen it. I remember losing a lot of friends and crying a lot because every day I saw something that was dehumanizing and it felt as though no one truly cared or could understand. I remember protesting, wearing my mask and distancing myself from people and observing them as they demanded social justice, and wondering why so many white people cared so much all of a sudden. Waiting for people to wake up in the morning after you’ve been awake for hours is intensely exhausting and frustrating. And while the world was grieving the loss of centuries worth of innocent black lives, I lost my sister. I experienced grief and still do and probably always will. I felt as though no one could comfort me enough. I started college. I met new people. I changed my major. I experienced freedom. I grew to know myself and I challenged my beliefs, let go of old ones and accepted new ones. 2020 was something I did not know I was prepared for, but I was. The thing is, this year sucked. Even small things felt like big things because everything seemed harder. The air felt poisonous and people felt farther. But the happenings of this year in particular changed me in ways that I will be forever grateful for. I am so in love with who I am and will never return to who I was before this year. It would pain me to do that. I did not know I could be this cool. My whole life I thought I had to change both myself and everything around me to be good enough. I was obsessed with the idea of controlling everything around me, even though it was impossible. 2020 beat me up and left me for dead. It grabbed me by the wrist and said “I am bigger than you”. But instead of fighting back, for the first time I agreed with what I could not understand. Yes, 2020, you are big and scary and mean and awful. But I am infinite, and gentle, and kind, and good. I will not change who I am because of a year, or because of what I cannot change. Not anymore. 2020 does not get credit for who I am today. I do. We all do. Be proud of yourself. Humans are extremely fragile, and you survived something much stronger than you. 2020 showed all of us that we do not have to conform to anything to be strong. We do not have to earn strength by enduring terrible things. Strength is always within us, and we choose when we will apply it. I am so proud of all of you for choosing to apply strength when you were most weak. This is why I refuse to write resolutions for 2021. 2021 will be what 2021 will be, and I cannot change that. I don’t need a ball to drop to clean my slate. I refuse to do that. Right now, I am carrying everything I’ve learned since the year 2002, and I need all of it to endure 2021. Resolutions do not need to start on January 1st. They can start whenever you feel ready. You will always be ready. Choose when to apply all the wisdom you’ve acquired, and trust yourself. This next year may be a continuation of this current year in the worst way possible, or things could get drastically better. You can just stay still. I am choosing rest this New Year. I was asleep when 2020 began. I did not stay up to celebrate the coming year and I may not stay up this year either. 2020 Skyler will be a stranger to 2021 Skyler. Not because the year will change, but because I am always changing. You will change and grow naturally. Be gentle with yourself, the world is rigid and daunting. Life occurs in seasons, and each one will present new challenges. The Earth does not look or act the same in winter as it does in spring. And neither do we. Congratulations for changing and shifting and dying and waking up through each season. I am so proud of you.

Love you,

Skyler