December 31, 2020
8.32pm
Gratefulness – it is something I remind myself year after year since 2017.
Today is the last day of 2020. In New Zealand, we are about to greet 2021 in less than five hours. I am still not sure how I fully feel about the past year. Should I still say grateful? And for next year, do I want to make gratefulness my goal again?
This time of the year really puts me into a reflective mood. For the last three years, I figured the best way to end my year is to spend some time alone with my laptop and write. Reading my little letter to myself last year, I can clearly still remember my time in the Philippines. I was sat in my room while Dad and Gedai were busy with setting up the karaoke. If I were honest, I remember being grumpy for not having enough time to write and reflect. It was my first time going home in the last two years I was away, but I was self-absorbed enough to be in a grumpy mood.
I am trying to understand why this moment of rumination is important to me. Humor me, reader, as I cannot afford a therapist.
While I love writing sentimental things, in my outward interactions with people I may seem otherwise. Sure, I am cheery and would always greet you with a smile (or an occasional hug), but I do not cry easily, and I have strange reactions to somber experiences. I have come to learn that sentimentality is not my strongest trait – but it does jump out of me when I write my end-of-year entries. And boy, this year, I have been such a sentimental rat.
When I left for New Zealand mid-January 2020, I could not stop crying. I said goodbye to my loved ones again, but the pain is much, much worse. Holding tears back in the plane was such a nightmare as I watched Manila’s skyline disappear into its polluted skies. I guess I knew I might not see them again sooner than I could foresee. For 2020, I knew that I had to do what I needed to do to give me more flexibility in travelling to and from Motherland and my second home.
I was also driven to miniscule tears several times the past year – the overbearing feeling of being small and alone, the anxiety of losing my job, the future, the disbelief from working with such kind people, the possibility of losing a friend, the future, watching SNSD’s “Into the New World”, being called “Corona”, the future. The future. I got sentimental this year is what I am getting at. Quite frankly, I hated the feeling.
However, I believe these were consequences of allowing myself to feel more instead of holding back. I allowed myself to feel fear, to feel sadness, to feel anger, to feel tired, and most importantly, grateful. It seems that most things became more bearable when I let my emotions’ undertow hold me captive for some time. When I finally can’t hold my breath, I swim up and work through my struggle because I understand I am not a creature made for water. Of course I would always see swimming up and out of my emotions as taxing. Of course I would hate every stroke and push to breath again, but what else can I do? The first relieving breath after almost drowning is its own different kind of high, something that makes me want to hold on to life. Something that keeps me wanting to swim up.
This is me allowing myself to feel pride for my little lapses of self-control this year. To answer about what I feel about this year, I would say I feel, felt, a lot.
Not sure what else if left to feel for 2021. I’m coming in blind, as my 2020 vision has already exhausted itself. (Yes, I made a 20/20-vision joke). And with that is my reminder of gratitude – I am at that point that I believe I have practiced it well enough that it is now a muscle memory. My gratitude, for all the things that happened to me and for all the things that I am, can bring me to tears now, and I am proud of myself.
Maybe I will find my reminder for 2021 somewhere in the next few weeks, or months. Maybe I won’t even figure it out fully. I am content on taking each thing as they arrive. This year’s been overwhelmingly turbulent, so I think I’ll try not to weigh myself down into the undercurrents. I would argue it is only because I am in a privileged position to do so.
I wish for everyone to have a better 2021, especially those who are not privileged enough to take it slow. We are still in the middle of cleaning up after the detritus that is 2020, so things may not be looking up for everyone. However, we are all hoping for the better and I hope to see you all on calmer waters.
Ink-onstipated 