I started off the year of 2021 watching two 3-hour-long movies with my mom. The poignant stories in the movies were both set in the 1920s through the 1940s in Mainland China, a time when the world was constantly changing. I remembered lying on a couch, feeling cozy in my blanket, and thinking, “what a challenging time to be alive—to have to be separated from the things and people you love because of the ever-changing environments.”
2021 in Taipei was a blessing. I had friends who were (and luckily, still are) amazing and supportive of me. It was reassuring that after fumbling around in different cities with Minerva, I could feel settled in and belonged to a community somewhere, especially somewhere close to home. Even though it was much later in the year when I travelled to Berlin and Italy that I became comfortable in the way I make connection with poeple, the people I met in Taipei had all along shown me how be a good friend and to care for other people—that it is ok to not know what you have to offer as long as you are offering it, that it is ok to give out love first without expecting a return, that it is ok to let people go in life when it’s time, and that it is ok to not want to spread myself too thin,
As I figure out how I love other people, 2021 is also the year where I got to learn the most about loving myself. I learned from Y that loving myself means recognizing the capacity I have in me. I learned from the book A Little Life that loving myself means acknowledging that life is hard sometimes, or more than sometimes and that it is ok to be not prusue perfection. I learned from my product design internship that loving myself means trying my best with the given condition I have and being proud of that because constraints are everywhere. I learned from getting sick that loving myself means being kind and empathetic to myself and not blaming myself for something out of my control. I learned from the pandemic that loving myself means sometimes you need to befriend your fear and work with it instead of letting it take over. Throughout all the chaos of 2021, I learned that I would be fine and that I have the strength and kindess it takes to go through the journey.
I learned from a conversation with E that I am not the kind of person that reaches out for help unless I feel like I am jumping off the cliff even though I have thought of myself as a very open “ person. I thought back and found that whenever I became more and more hesitant to reach out to my friends when I am down because I didn’t know what I can do about it or what they can do about it. I was afraid that people would grow to become disappointed in me and wanted to run away from me. But I learned from my friends during my covid days that I have people who are one call away. And I learned from C that it is ok to be vulnerable, to let someone into your life, and to let someone love you. In the fast-changing world, I learned that some love wouldn’t change.
It’s like that line, “In the world that has decided that it is going to lose its mind, be more kind my friend. Try to be more kind.”