loose change

jan. 3 2022

Isabella;

it’s hard to figure out where to begin: how do you write about a year that you keep forgetting has ended? and to contemplate another year of friendship from a distance–how do you recap a year in friendship when the primary source of connection is a telephone? lots of potential to write of past/future, but the present feels daunting these days.

the glaring reality, I feel, is that it was another year of cancellations, a year of uncertainty, a year of distrust, a year of distancing, a year of yearning for normalcy, for stability, for better. along the same line it was a year of hope, a year to learn from failure, a year to strengthen and prepare us for the incumbent one, which I have no doubt will be challenging. for many, for me, it was a year of both internal and circumstantial change. there are versions of me scattered throughout these past months that I am sure I will never know again, and while we are all constantly evolving and adapting I think the pandemic has exacerbated these effects. I sometimes feel like I’m in a rollercoaster that’s barreling through time without brakes. what a trip to be in our early twenties in these climes!

it’s also hard to believe that this is the fifth annual letter in sequence. five years on paper doesn’t feel magnanimous but the growth over the course of these notes is undeniable and strange, and what’s strangest is the change in tone of pandemic-bound letters. I want to know what it is about these years and the pandemic that is so contrary to writing and I’m sure if I had the energy to research it I’d know–and I’m sure it wouldn’t be difficult to research, I’m sure someone already has–but I just haven’t wanted to do it, the research or the writing. and it’s crazy how scary things become when you’re out of practice, how I can draw a parallel between ice skating and writing and deem my fear of falling/failing equal.

jan. 20 2022

I’ve let this letter fester for seventeen days and I still don’t have a cohesive idea of how to wrap up 2021 and face the new year. the thing about time is that you don’t have a choice in facing it. it doesn’t feel right to continue moving forward when the past feels as unresolved as it does to me now; time feels like an open wound begging to heal but unable to stop moving, breaking the scar open again and again. even as I write that I’m unable to grasp the depth of its emotional reach because if I were to consider it I’m not sure I would have room to consider anything else. so we keep moving forward, individually and as a country and as a world, putting bandaids on the unhealed wounds of 2020 and 2021. I’m afraid of removing the bandaid, of cleaning my wound. on most days it feels easiest to be present and take on only what we can control so we go to class or work, we love our friends, we call our family, we make do with what we have–which is a great privilege.

in a story from NPR’s the Moth podcast, geologist Hannah Morris coined what she calls “worrying out of the corner of your eye.” she describes this mixture of fear and anxiety that is so strong that you’re compelled to worry about this thing, but at the same time it’s so scary that you can barely stand to look at it. it’s frightening to think about how many structures this applies to, politically, climatically, pandemically. in this year especially I’ve felt a warrant for individual responsibility cast onto us by our government in all three areas: the lack of guidance and cohesion from our government begs us individually to decide our own covid protocols, our own ecological footprints, and for those living in the south, their own right to vote. the government has made abundantly clear that they’re as divided and as lost as their country, creating instability that as a child I never thought I’d witness. it’s a disembodying time to be alive.

but out of the challenges that these years ask us to meet, we are strengthened. whether individually or as a collective, we have no choice but to continue living in conditions for which we have not been prepared. you start to look at things relatively, in the best case we are able to decide what matters most to us, what we’ll spend our time on to make the living worthwhile. we learn resilience, and some of us will learn that we are best served when we are working to serve those who have less than we do. others will learn that they feel most strengthened by a false sense of hierarchy, or power. I think frequently about how the narrative throughout the pandemic has shifted from “when this is over” to “when the next phase comes.” I think about how lucky we are to have lived our childhoods unmasked. I think about the difference between the longing for a time far from this pandemic and the fact that we even know what a world away from pandemic looks like. the big picture in my head is actually very small, the way that we are all individually born into this world, the way we adapt to the surroundings in which we are raised, the way we are all tasked with the fundamental decision to get up every morning, the way some of us do, the way some of us don’t.

this is all to say that I am proud of us for getting up every day. I hope we are able to know ourselves better because of it, and I hope we are gentle to ourselves on the days we feel we can’t. in 2022 I hope to write more, to love my friends more, to see my friends more, to walk more, to forgive more and to help more. I hope my letter to you in 2023 details triumphs and reunions and mountains climbed and risks taken. I hope this letter doesn’t feel dismal because despite the circumstances we do have much to be thankful for, and things to look forward to. my mother has instilled in me that it’s important to hold on to those things no matter how minute they may feel on any given day.

I love you with all the love an old pal can give.

xxoo, Ryder