The intersection of monotony and variability: reflections on 2020 and beyond
A recurring theme of the past ~14 months is that every day is the same. While I do agree that day-to-day life is riddled with monotony and sometimes I forget what month it is let alone what day of the week it is, I couldn’t have a more different life compared to a year ago. I couldn’t have a more different life compared to six months ago, even. So much so that it feels like a different person lived my life before the me that is living it now.
I may have lost some of you, so let me attempt to break it down. If you asked me what I did last Monday, I would tell you that while I’m not 100% sure, I likely walked to get coffee in the morning, worked on schoolwork and watched YouTube in the afternoon, and made dinner with my boyfriend at night, and I would probably be right. But if you asked me what I did last Wednesday, I would tell you I likely walked to get coffee in the morning, worked on schoolwork and watched YouTube in the afternoon, and made dinner with my boyfriend at night, and I once again would probably be right. See what I mean?
Before I keep going, I just feel it’s necessary to say that I’m not bashing the way I’m spending my Mondays/Wednesdays/every days. I’ve established a wonderful little routine that I appreciate so much and get so sad thinking about the prospect of it ending.
What I will say, though, is that it’s incredibly jarring to look up one day and realize you’re a completely different person than you were a year ago when most of your days in the past year have seemed somewhat identical.
With what seems to be the flip of a switch, I went from a bubbly, outgoing girl to a solitary hermit who refused to change out of the same hoodie for four months straight. Then one day I was just seemingly back to normal. But the sociable girl from before is not the same as the one now, and when it feels like a year passed by like a whirlwind, it’s a little discombobulating to think about how I got from point A to point B to point C.
A lot of the time I’m very dismissive of myself. It’s not that I’m mean, but I could pay better attention. I like to think that the way I treat myself is the way a boss treats an underappreciated employee. I don’t really acknowledge my good qualities, but at times I can really go in on my bad ones. I say this because I think I discount a lot of the mental and emotional work that was done throughout this year. While when looking at the day-to-day it seems like nothing has happened, there’s been a huge transformation building up in my brain.
This came to a head for me last week when my therapist said she was so proud of the work I’ve done to get to where I am now. It took me a minute to take that in as I couldn’t quite recall the “work” she was talking about.
I don’t need to go into the gritty details regarding my mental health journey, but I will say that it really took some time for me to acknowledge the fact that the happiness and light I have in my days now didn’t just happen by chance. It’s an immediate byproduct of months and months spent lifting myself up from some of the deepest lows I’ve ever experienced. The dismissive boss in me could only focus on the fact that I let myself get so low to begin with, and disregarded the fact that I also was the one to build myself back up.
I will say I wasn’t sure of the direction this train of thought was going to take when I began writing. What prompted me was the anticipation of the coming month’s events: graduating college, moving into a new apartment, starting a new job, all of which will bring about their own individual reflections in the near future. These are milestones that make me visibly giddy to think about. Like, so giddy I could jump up and down. It feels like a new chapter of my life is starting in the corniest way possible. I spent a lot of time at my lowest points this year dreaming about these current and coming months, using them as benchmarks and goals to reach for. Now that I’m finally here, I can look forward with even more excitement, and always have the daily work I did to make it to this point in the back of my mind.
