On: 2021

Just twelve hours before the new year, I’m sitting down to reflect on the one that is about to pass. 2021 brought many experiences and emotions. On one hand I think of loss, sorrow, isolation, anger, sickness; on the other I think of life, change, community, love, hope. Like nearly anything else, the bad doesn’t negate the good. The hardships don’t exclude the joys. 

Over the past year, I’ve stood on a tenuous precipice between realization and negligence. I felt closer to my humanity than ever before—closer to the illusory raison d’être. Simultaneously, I felt further from contentment. Why did our collective reality have to shift right as I entered “the rest of my life”? Why do I have to spend my young adulthood whisked away in confinement, four walls to restrict my ambitions? 

I’ve long since abandoned that self-pity. Much, much worse has happened and will continue to happen in the world. I have experienced only the mildest symptoms of our times. And while I want to say that 2021 was one of the worst years of my life, it is equally true that it was one of the best. So, I’ll put a magnifying glass up to all the good I experienced. 

I got vaccinated. I traveled. I moved out of my family’s home. I moved in with my partner. I dyed my hair. I started playing basketball. I bought a mattress. I read Rebecca. I launched my website. I started drinking coffee. I adopted a senior dog. I quit my job. I baked cookies from scratch. I eluded Covid.

In the moment, none of these occurrences felt particularly special or important. And, in the grand scheme of things, they’re just a wrinkle in the pages of time. In retrospect, though, I feel a sort of pride. Nothing vain—just a quiet satisfaction in the ways that I have changed and grown. As I close the cover of 2021 and put it on the shelf, I have a hunch that I’ll revisit the book again one day with greater appreciation.     

Below, in no particular order, are 21 photos I took in 2021. 

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