A year and roughly three weeks ago, I embarked on a personal challenge to take and post one photo every day for the entirety of 2021.
I wrote about how I’d spent my twenties turning creative photography projects like this one into a mental health lifeline for myself — how they taught me that there’s at least one part of each day that’s worth remembering. That you can train yourself to see beauty in the ordinary.
That even when life feels like a swirling, monotonous vortex of uncertainty, it’s possible to look back at a year’s worth of images and feel richness.
And this time, I wanted to use it as a metaphorical rope to pull me out of the low mental state I was in, feeling lonely and defeated by all the trauma of 2020. Here’s what I said in January 2021:
I’m doing this in an effort to support my intention of trusting that the world and my life are on an upward trajectory. That so many beautiful things can unfold this year, even if I have to wait for them a little while longer. Call it what you will—manifestation, self-fulfilling prophecy—but it helps me.
Who knows what new chapter of my life I’ll capture this time.
And you know what I ended up capturing?
I captured moments along the journey of pandemic life: the first mass vaccination sites; eating at a restaurant for the first time in a year and how satisfying the hot, crispy tortilla chips were; how hard it was to do teletherapy in my car for a full year just to get some privacy; how fulfilling it was to gather with my family again; my first live music show in over a year that made me cry; getting vaccinated and boosted; mask mandates coming back when delta hit.
I also captured the big, life-altering moments that I still can’t believe all happened in one year: adopting my new feline best friend; moving into a new apartment; my brother getting engaged; the end of a job I had for six years; the start of a new one; the day I found out one of my best friends is having a baby; a new relationship growing and so many exciting “firsts” that come with that.
And amidst all that and the more mundane days of cleaning, doing taxes, and going to the vet, I captured myself looking happier and happier.
So what did I learn from doing this again? I learned that life is an abundant, messy collection of experiences — some horrible, some momentous and wonderful, others quite boring — and they’re all mixed up with each other. They all come and go, and just because a year starts off in gloom and boredom, it doesn’t have to stay that way.
The important thing to do is to trust. To move forward with courage and hope even when things are hard and believe that you have it within you to build a life that will make you feel content and full, a little bit at a time.
Committing to this project is what got me to trust that better things were ahead, even if they were all wrapped up with frustration and boredom, too. But you can decide for yourself, whenever you want to, that you’re going to trust, and just see all the ways that this ridiculous thing called life can unfold for you.