At 10 P.M. on December 31, 2020, under the influence of wine and tequila, I finally articulated a nagging feeling that I couldn’t shake. While most of myself begged for 2021 to finally usher in, a small part remained hesitant. I wondered why, when 2020 brought so many challenges, that I was almost sorry to see it go.

The issues of 2020 were seemingly, even before we knew it, packaged neatly into a one-year-long debacle. The virus acted as the first domino to fall in a long line of other issues. The world, having suffered through isolation, was perfectly primed for the unrest and hate that came in the following months. Fortunately by November, election results and hope of a vaccine slightly tempered the air of disunity in exchange for quiet holidays at home.

It has been nice, if not cathartic, to place blame on 2020 for all of these issues, when in reality, 2020 had nothing to do with it. The world turned around the sun the same way that it always has, rotating and tilting with precision for, in 2020’s case, 366 days.

In the delusion we constructed for ourselves, our problems could remain neatly intact and bound to 2020–a mentality that “2020 sucks” but that time always moves on. There was a sort of unspoken promise with 2020 that, when it passed, so too would our problems.

We find ourselves now in 2021, just one day older and few problems resolved. We can no longer displace the blame on 2020, because our issues outlasted it. 

I heard more than a few people ring in 2020 saying, “this is my year.” Ironically, it was no one’s. We now recognize statements like these as inappropriate and tone-deaf; in truth, they always were.

Here’s to hoping that 2021 is our year: a year of recovery, of change, of intention.

Scrolling my social media feed today reminds me of going to church camp. I attended camp every summer of my childhood and remember it vividly. Every year I would return with a fire for the Gospel burning so hot in my soul that I thought no one at home understood me anymore. I was so deep.

This phenomenon happened to all of the campers. We called it a “spiritual high,” which in hindsight, is ironic in many ways. Every year I vowed that I would remain zealous as long as I lived, that I would never let my fervor fade.

But it always did.

If you squint, you can see a resemblance between the passion of my camp-going peers and recent followers of the Black Lives Matter movement. We vowed that we would always care this much about racial injustice no matter what. We shunned the idea of performance activism. We canceled people that didn’t speak loudly enough.

But for how long?

While these lifelong commitments are positive and necessary, they’re easy to make when we’re immersed in a culture of change. Plus, everyone else is doing it.

I bounced between spiritual high, disappointment, and guilt for years before I finally understood that my expectations for radical spirituality were unrealistic. (For context, I was only in middle school at the time.) Instead of making promises to myself that I would “never go back to the way I was,” I started to set smaller, daily intentions and measurable goals. I checked in with myself three and six months later to realign. I wrote it all down to ensure that I made progress, however steady. This long-game strategy worked for me before, and I believe it can work for all of us now.

My fellow white folks, let’s not allow our actions to fade with emotion. Let’s reassess our progress in three months, six months, next year, and everyday in between. Let’s write down our mistakes, because we will make them, and try hard not to make them again. Let’s not shame ourselves into paralysis. In whatever we do, let’s be allies.

“My only advantage as a reporter is that I am so physically small, so temperamentally unobtrusive, and so neurotically inarticulate that people tend to forget that my presence runs counter to their best interests. And it always does. That is one last thing to remember: writers are always selling somebody out.” - Joan Didion

Iguazú Falls, Argentina | July 2019

Didion said it better than I ever could: an unassuming disposition has its perks.

I’ve had a baby face, since I was--well, a baby. I got older and grew taller, but my large eyes never shrank and my round face never lengthened. Having child-resembling features means that I automatically look much younger than I am, something that strangers remind me “you’ll be very grateful for when you get older!,” usually to back-peddle after they’ve just asked what grade I’m in.

Waiters handed me kids’ menus well into my adolescence, and I’ve had my ID rejected as “fake” on multiple occasions. When the local mall announced in 2017 that anyone under 18 would not be allowed to stay past 8pm, security approached me while working my retail job to ask me to leave. (The latter presented an especially awkward situation.)

The accumulation of these small instances jaded me over time. Passers-by meant well by offering to help me with simple tasks (to carry groceries, for instance), but my pride shot them down every time. My stubborn spirit would rather give them a “no thank you” and spill my eggs on the ground than confirm their suspicions about my small frame. I grew averse to accepting help, even if I needed it.

But my apparently helpless demeanor does provide some unexpected benefits. People can be easily impressed when I do something normal, like speak my mind, eat my weight at a buffet, or lift anything heavier than 10 lbs. 

I tend to think that if I must battle these assumptions, I best use them to my advantage. To be extremely unintimidating, absolutely approachable, “cute,” swings some situations in my favor. It’s easier to treat rules as suggestions if no one incriminates you for breaking them. This proved especially useful in journalism school. 

“Oh, I’m not supposed to be here? I’m so sorry. I’ll leave now.” I’ve said this many times while photographing something, somewhere I knew I had no business.

Other well used phrases: “I would really appreciate the refund. Is there someone else I can speak with?” And famously, “You’re right, I was speeding. I won’t do it again.”

Flattery and humility (whether genuine or feigned) go a long way in getting what you want, but a baby face does too. When strangers remind me that I should be thankful for looking young, they have no idea why I already am.

Most two-year-olds are unfamiliar with Ani DiFranco. But the 1990s punk-folk rocker enraptured my mom’s attention and consistently filled our car and living room with angsty music. Mom stuffed my ears with earplugs and, refusing to let a child disrupt her rockstar dreams, drug me to a DiFranco show, my first concert.

The musical influence on my life did not slow with time. I spent afternoons in elementary school watching my dad mix tracks on Protools and direct local bands in his sound booth. My father, basically a musical prodigy from birth, owned a record label and music studio in my hometown.

It seems reasonable to assume that my parents’ combined rockstar and sound engineer genes would result in a musically-inclined super genius. Instead, they ended up with me.

Even my physicality demanded an interest in music, as I certainly wasn’t athletic. My fingers, unnaturally long, are perfect for gliding across a guitar fretboard or spreading across octaves of a piano. My parents’ friends in the music community would almost always ask if I played an instrument or--even more absurd--if I could sing. I’d developed an unspoken game between myself and them, the adults. 

“No,” I would respond confidently, somewhat satisfied that I’d broken their expectation. It felt like a tiny rebellion, and it was a sure-fire way to end any boring conversation with the grown-ups.

In middle school I took free vocal lessons through a family friend. Aside from severe stage fright, I didn’t have a good reason not to try. I was more afraid to admit the fear than to face it, and my first performance was a disaster. Immediately prior, I’d hyperventilated and nearly fainted. The program director reminded me that I didn’t “have to do this.” But I did. My parents were musicians; I would be too. My sixth-grade self mustered through a rendition of Katrina and the Waves’ “Walkin’ on Sunshine” with extreme difficulty, and in a brand new Limited Too outfit, I battled through the longest four minutes of my life. 

Something, probably High School Musical, prompted me to attempt singing again a few years later. Half-expectant that he would recognize my undiscovered talent, I pressured my dad for studio time. He never offered me that record deal, despite recording countless karaoke versions of Vanessa Anne Hudgens’ solo in “Breaking Free.”

Realizing that singing would not be my life’s passion, I gave my vocal cords a break in favor of piano lessons from my dad. These sessions resulted in more time debating whether or not I’d practiced, an argument that’s easier to win with a non-resident instructor. The cycle merely resulted in a pile of unused sheet music, a dusty piano, and a building resentment toward creating music of my own.

Moving to college removed the exceptional influence, and pressure, of making music from my daily life. It reappears now only when I listen to my dad play the mandolin outside on summer nights or attend a concert of my mom’s rock cover band. 

While I can’t call myself a musician, I possess an intense appreciation for music, which I attribute to my parents. I have two blown-out car speakers, my favorite bands’ set lists and autographs, a growing vinyl collection, and carefully-curated Spotify playlists to prove it. Part of me is proud of my younger, defiant self, unwilling to accept the “expected” identity of my parents’ friends, yet I cannot deny how instrumental it still is in my character.