Small Victories — Suzey Ingold

A few, tentative steps into the new year, I feel – dare I say it? Optimistic. I’m not the most optimistic person at the best of times, let alone in January when the grey skies sink low and a stagnant cloud settles over my shoulders. But it doesn’t feel like the usual kind of January, despite the weather and the Christmas tree crumbling to its last shreds by my side. It doesn’t really even feel like a new year at all – years? What are those? Something that falls in the same category with days and months that stopped existing in the midst of it all. Time lost all meaning a long time ago.

Seasons changed… The world kept turning.

Emerging from the post-Christmas lull, I sat back down to “work”, in as much as I can call my quiet days of writing and editing that, and I felt energised. Motivated. And, yes, I will say it again: optimistic.

That optimism didn’t come from feeling as though it was all over (and it certainly is not, over). That 2020 could fade into a distant memory, little more than a shudder down the spine when recalled in the years to come. It came from a realisation of all that the past year was. Pushed it our limits, difficult realities boiled over. Voices were heard, long overdue. We learned to adapt. We learned to survive. We helped those around us, whether in a kind word or in more tangible actions.

The world will need a long time to heal. But, in the midst of all of that, life did continue. Contrary to how we have become accustomed to speaking about the past nine months, the world did not actually stop still in March. I was guilty of it, of talking about the past year as time wasted, time in which I did nothing. I have frequently been consumed by irrational bouts of anger over the time I would not get back – for my generation, in particular, at an age when we should have the freedom to be as spontaneous as possible.

On New Year’s Eve, in a quiet, contemplative mood, I sat down with a list of journal prompts and started scribbling. At first glance, I was convinced I wouldn’t have much to write for several of the answers. What am I proud of this year? What brought me joy this year? What are the most memorable moments that happened this year? Yeah, right, I thought with a roll of my eyes.

Nevertheless, I forced myself to actually think about them. To actually take the question in and start to write. Once I started, I found I kept going. It turns out, I had accomplished things this year. It turns out, I did have some happy memories from the year. I remembered sitting for hours on video chat with my niece while she drew pictures and I got on with work, just being in each other’s presence in the best way we could. I remembered tramping through the forest in northern Ontario, exploring my own surroundings for a change instead of jet-setting halfway around the globe. I remembered the great new tradition of window beers, sitting in my living room while my friends set up camp chairs in the alleyway outside.

At the end of the year, it was the quiet moments that stood out as the most memorable.

They weren’t the memories I expected to have. They weren’t the roads I expected to travel. It was, for someone who bounces between festivals and travelling and everything else besides, a remarkably quiet and slow year. And you know the first thing I wrote as bringing me joy this year? Having more time. For someone with very itchy feet, it did feel good to slow down.

It’s been far too easy for me to fall down a rabbit hole of thinking on the last year as wasted time. It wasn’t wasted. It was just used differently. As I sat to write out my 2021 goals, I checked back on those I had for 2020, and to some degree of surprise, realised that I had achieved many of them, if not quite all. I do try and set concrete goals: things that I have the means the achieve, with a little bit of focus or dedication or work. For example, I had hoped to get a literary agent by the end of the year, but I didn’t write it down as a goal because that is out of my control. I put in the work to try and get one – but beyond that, I can only let the fates unwind as they will.

The goals I didn’t achieve fell into two categories: things that became out of my control as a result of the pandemic and things that I could have done and didn’t manage. I knocked off every goal I had for my health and then some. The finance section is a bit more rocky, which is equal parts in and out of my control. But what really struck me was there was an entire section that I don’t know that I would have achieved if I had been working full-time all year as planned. Under growth, I wanted to write a screenplay, develop my art skills, and move into my own apartment. The first two I never would have had the time for on my old schedule, at least not to the extent that I pursued them this year. And if it weren’t for the plummeting rental prices across the city, I can’t imagine that I could have afforded to move into my own apartment so soon without a steep pay raise.

I’m very conscious of how fortunate a situation I was in for such a difficult year. I lived in a country with a comprehensive emergency benefit scheme with generous parents to help when I needed it. I had a comfortable living situation and plenty of projects to keep me occupied. I kept in good health, as did all of my family and loved ones.

I set a handful of goals for 2021. But, more than that, what I want to take forward into this year is an idea: to focus on the things I can change and accept the things I can’t. It’s time for me to stop losing energy over things I can’t change and dedicate my time and motivation where it counts.

In a year like 2020, if all anyone managed was to get through it, that is still an accomplishment in itself. All of us did something. All of us kept going in the face of a world in which we never knew what the next day could bring. In times like this, it’s just as important to celebrate those small victories as it is any grand achievement. Life will keep going. All we can do is keep going with it.