New Year’s Day, 2021

Graphics by Jess Underwood and photography by Ella Sylvie

It is New Year’s Day, 2021. I’ve never been a fan of celebrating the arrival of the new year — it may be pessimistic of me, but I don’t like the way people use it to convince themselves of an incoming lifestyle transformation, only to relapse into their old, lazy habits a month or two later. In years gone by, I’ve definitely been guilty of this myself. Perhaps my own failure to exceed the unattainable standards I set myself is the reason I resent seeing other people do the same. It sucks to disappoint yourself!

This year, though, it feels different. Along with the rest of the world, I let out a sigh of relief as the clock struck midnight and we could round off this chapter of our lives. It did actually feel quite freeing, to my surprise — so much so that I almost shed a tear. However, being an INTJ who avoids showing emotion at all costs, even to my nearest and dearest, I blinked it away and hugged my sister. I noticed her similarly silent relief, and my parents the same. This year took it out on all of us, but we did grow closer as a family. We ended 2020 how we’d spent most of it: the four of us and our dog, Charlie, wrapped up on the sofa and unable to safely mix with anyone outside of our little bubble. It felt bittersweet but also poignantly appropriate after a year of not much else.

To welcome 2021, we went for a countryside walk in what felt like the morning, but was actually about mid-afternoon. If you don’t lose track of time over Christmas and the New Year, are you even doing the holiday season right? If you’ve listened to “evermore,” Taylor Swift’s (god-tier) new album, the imagery in her lyrics is pretty much what our walk looked like. The houses gave off an “incandescent glow” like Taylor sings in “ivy,” and the mud was messy like the truck tyres in “‘tis the damn season.” It was very picturesque, until the heavens opened and the rain set in for the entire second half of the walk. We got soaked, but no one was as bedraggled as Charlie. He’s a Pomchi, a Pomeranian-Chihuahua cross, so he’s very fluffy and very tiny — and a magnet for mud on winter walks. At least he had his little raincoat on!

Strangely, I didn’t mind the rain today. I usually find it inconvenient and uncomfortable — why I haven’t got used to it yet, having lived in England my whole life, I don’t know. But today, I actually enjoyed it. My default mindset of pessimism would ordinarily have droned on in my head and aloud, voicing fears that this dreary weather was foreshadowing that 2021 would be no different from its hellish predecessor. I guess my resolution to be more optimistic has already begun to kick in though, because today, I saw it differently. It was as if the sky and even the world itself was letting out the same sigh of relief that I did at midnight, except it didn’t refrain from shedding a tear as I had. Rather, it shed several. 

We gave Charlie a bath when we got back. Well, I say bath. He’s actually small enough to fit in a tub we keep in the sink to put dirty dishes in, so we just brought one of those to the front door and washed him in that. After hot chocolates and a few games of cards, I, too, went off to have a wash — mine actually was in a bath, though! Curled up on the sofa now, I feel at peace. I am not allowing my mind to spiral too far into worrying about the school work waiting for me to complete before next week. It’s under control, I tell myself — halfway to a lie, but it will be fine.

It will be fine. That’s my biggest takeaway from 2020. As much as all that soppy motivational stuff I’ve seen people say makes me cringe, I got through everything that last year hit me with! I’m proud of that, and I am not as daunted by this New Year as I have been in the past. So, not to switch up on you or anything but … this year, I‘ve come up with resolutions. I haven’t done so in a few years, but even so, I’ve set goals differently than before. I set unspecific aims that will improve my own wellbeing and, more importantly, that I can hold fast to even if the world turns upside down again. Don’t get me wrong, I sure hope it won’t! I miss travelling and seeing friends and going out for the sake of it as much as the next person. All I’m saying is, last year made me realise my own strengths — particularly my adaptability.

One of those strengths has been rediscovering the things I love to do, writing being one of them. I never used to do it outside of my academic pursuits because school essays would drain me and make it into a chore, not a hobby. Now, it is a release of emotion that I otherwise wouldn’t acknowledge, or on a less profound level, it allows me to record days and experiences I may otherwise forget. I take a lot of photos now too for the same reason, but an image can only tell you so much. 

Hopefully, the fact that I’ve done both today marks the beginning of a year that is memorable for all the right reasons.