2022

Viewing 2022 through my friend’s Instagram stories felt surreal. The year was decidedly split into two halves: stuck in the stasis of post-pandemic lockdown inertia or national service lull, and then suddenly everyone’s social media came alive with travel destinations and restarting life in University. I think just that alone makes 2022 one of my favourite years since I could live off the exuberance of everyone’s life moving again. 

My own 2022 though, is also a year full of motion and change. This year has been a year of destabilisation and the strange sense of loss that accompanies adulthood. I used to set new year’s resolution with friends, but this year I kept telling everyone that I have yet to set them, and fulfilled that prophecy by passing midnight in an AMC theatres watching a movie with no thoughts on who I wanted to become. This year I learnt what it means to be unmoored from support and face life alone overseas. I’ve finally turned to the legal drinking age in America — and too often Taylor’s lyrics come to mind “it’s supposed to be fun turning 21”. I feel like all of my friendships and connections are hurtling ahead in different directions from me. The teachers who taught me in school are all no longer teaching. We reminisce about good old times. Outside of reading for classes I’ve read very little this year. Maybe all of this contributes to the sense of loss as I grow into my own skin. 

But 2022 is still a good year. I’ve travelled a lot more than I had and learnt to take care of myself. I got my drivers license here and am now one more checkbox closer to being an adult. I’ve found some footing in the land far away from home. I still exercise and sleep early. I had my heart broken and am one step closer to knowing the spectrum of human experiences. In one of the few leisure books I read, a phrase stood out to me: the city approached like a headache, slowly and imperceptibly changing before suddenly you realise it’s upon you (at least that’s how I remembered it in my head). The year approaches in a similar fashion, each day passing with full splendour and with such a slow pace that suddenly I open my eyes and it’s time to grow old again. 

What better way to capture 2022 with this photo of me driving across states for the first time. Do I look nervous as hell and am gripping the wheel too tight? You should see my stressed face on top of that. But that is the way I must go forward into the new year, nervous and excited and at the wheel of my own fortune. I will savour the trepidation of growing up and into my own adulthood, because it only comes by once, and soon the nervousness would fade into a distant memory. I hope everyone will have a 2023 that will be equally vivid and nourishing and continue to flourish from the seeds sown in 2022.