top of page
Search

Why 2020 Has Been (And Will Continue to Be) The Best Year of My Life - CULTURETAP

  • Writer: Yelena Lightfoot
    Yelena Lightfoot
  • Sep 13, 2020
  • 6 min read

Updated: May 22, 2024

In the beginning, I was completely, totally, and bitterly miserable.


About a year ago, in September 2019, I started studying at a school I thought I'd love but ended up hating, I was living with the worst roommates anyone could ask for, and I was in a program that was so difficult and uninteresting to me that I immediately felt more lost and unintelligent whenever I so much as thought about the course material. I had suffered a messy breakup and learned that my "friends" from high school didn't want to talk to me anymore. And if that fact alone wasn't enough, my mental health issues sometimes bar me from comfortable social interaction, so this was an excruciating blow. I found it incredibly difficult to make new connections. Despite having loved ones at home to back me up, I felt completely alone. Depending on who you are, some of these things might sound like they also happened to you as a young adult, but I can guarantee my story is different. After all, everyone's is.

But anyway, hope was on the horizon. I began a new, healthier relationship and still managed to work on my mental health, albeit slowly. In February, I found a school with a program more suited to me, with a better reputation, campus and average class sizes. I applied, and after what felt like the longest wait in the world, I was accepted there! I was going to live at home, where I was most comfortable, and I could get a job, be with my loved ones, and completely reset myself.


April 2020 might as well have been the pearly white gates for me. I couldn't wait. I'd be free to completely start anew. I was so, so sure that this would be my moment. This was when I'd finally start to be free of all my worries and I'd grow into the successful, happy, adult version of myself that I had always envisioned when I was little. This would be the start of the exciting, enriching university years that everyone had told me so much about. This was going to be the time in my life that I'd look back on so fondly when I'm older and wish I could relive over and over again.

These were the last moments of my chrysalis, and I couldn't wait to break free.


And then, in March of 2020, just like my own world had, everyone else's came crashing down as well.


Saying I was crushed would be downplaying the situation. After some of the worst months of my life, I had sank even lower, and the world had come with me. My misery had now been matched and exceeded by everything on the news: a new global flu, large-scale racial tensions, climate change and general corruption all around.

The certainty I held about my future was gone. I realized that I had taken for granted the stability of those around me, because now that was gone too. I couldn't bring myself to work on anything - from passion projects I had planned months earlier, to finishing schoolwork, to literally just daily organization of my bedroom. For months, I couldn't sleep. When I would finally drift off at 4 to 5 AM, I had extremely vivid, often stressful dreams every single night. To top it all off, my self-pity had now often turned into frustration. I was angry at myself, the news, people around me, people I didn't even know, and any God that might be out there.


So, what's with that title I chose? Doesn't sound like the best year of my life, does it?


Well, it would be horribly predictable if I told you that things amazingly got astronomically better. It also couldn't be true. Just because I learned not to rely on the news for all my media intake doesn't mean that what they were reporting wasn't still based in some semblance of truth.

People tend to view the best years of their lives as times when they were most happy. Maybe it's their college years, maybe it's the year they got married or had a kid, maybe it's the year they finally got their dream job. It's the time when everything pays off. It's the apex of everything else. Obviously, right? Who doesn't think like that?

Well, I do and I don't. In my life, if I get that promotion, or have that child, or get married to that person, I'm not going to say 2020 was better in the same sense. I think I'd have to be completely ignorant to believe that way. But, in another definition, I think the best years of your life can be the ones that you hate. They can be the ones where you feel like everything around you is crumbling and you know you're going to have to fight your way out. If life was a movie, they can be the parts with the tense music, the stark lighting, the deepest conflict, where our hero thinks all hope might be lost. And I think this way for a pretty simple reason: because the good times don't make you the person you are today. You don't learn by winning, and in the same way, you don't build yourself into a wonderful, strong, interesting, characterful person by finding happiness in life all of the time.

To put it in cliché terms, isn't the journey the real destination? When you have that child, or get that promotion, you will be the version of yourself that is the most incredible, and the darkest years of our lives have a major hand in that.


Now, I know this might seem like idiotic optimism. I know there are times where I would have thought that too. And I will never, ever downplay how lucky I am in comparison to some. I am blessed with a roof over my head, an inner circle of loved ones I can rely on, and countless other privileges that others don't have. However, fairly recently, I heard someone tell a story about how they were frustrated with a classmate because the classmate said that they were "sick of hearing about everything going on".

"What a privilege it is", this person said, "to be able to just 'turn off' hearing about the suffering of others." And to be honest, I was on both sides. Of course it is necessary to be in the pursuit of justice where possible. If we can help, we should. But I also understand the fatigue. Not only is it not human to enjoy hearing about negativity, but 2020 has brought the suffering of so many people in so many forms - VERY few are exempt from it. We've all lost jobs, time with others, opportunities, money, willpower, and even lives. We've all felt the disconnect. And I hope that with this essay I don't insist that you must refer to this year as "the best" if you cannot see it the way I do. I don't fault you for that. My goal, however, is to help you reflect on yourself, and perhaps help you look at your negative experiences through the way they have inspired your personal growth and perseverance. Maybe, in that sense, this has been one of the best years of your life.


I may be just speaking with youthful optimism here, but I never ever thought that I could grow and learn so much about life while I'm essentially stuck between the same few walls of my house. Never has so much suffering brought so much change on all levels from personal to global.


You may be wondering why I didn't write all of this at the end of the year. Things could certainly get worse from here, right? To that, I say this: September is a checkpoint. Many younger people are starting school, cold weather and the holidays are upon us, and this month onward could mark a change in, well, everything. I don't know; I can't see the future. But I know, whatever happens, I will grow and change from it, and for that, I will be richer in character and in experience than I ever was before. From there, I can strive towards that self-fulfillment/payoff that I know is waiting for me.


During the best year of my life, I've been completely miserable, and that, my friends, is okay.


~


Please consider donating so that we might all get an equal shot at seeing better days:

Canadian Mental Health Association: https://cmha.ca




1 Comment

ivaperic-lightfoot
Sep 21, 2020

So insightful and intelligent. Xo

Like

Email updates -  if you like me enough, be notified when a new post goes up!

Thanks for submitting!

bottom of page