measuring emotional growth.
How do we quantify the intangible?
Distant thrashing of fireworks softly echoed in my sister’s Seattle home. The unexpected and unprecedented sheets of snow, now thinly filmed with ice, glistened and reflected their light. When midnight struck, exclamations erupted throughout the neighborhood and quietly dispersed into our living room. My family cheered for the New Year and calls soon flooded in. Nostalgic and reminiscent conversations were replaced with hopes for 2022; this year was one we wished to forget.
I never enjoyed New Year’s Eve. There is a sudden yet ubiquitous urgency to find a notable way to celebrate. This external pressure is accompanied with the ensuing stress from last minute planning and contemplating if exposing your legs for the sake of fashion is worth hypothermia. Bars are overcrowded, drinks are overpriced, ride shares are 10x the cost and wait. And after the New Year’s Ball drops at midnight, the evening magic devolves into a pumpkin—ordinary and like any other. Time, after all, is a construct and if we were to remove the concept of calendars, January 1st is another bitterly cold day.
Despite my gripes and grievances toward whoever defined the parameters for minutes/hours/days, time gives us a mental framework toward our ever moving day-to-day. The same could be said about the New Year.
While I eye-roll at how we’ve normalized an objectively awful way to celebrate, there are two aspects I enjoy when we think about the core of the New Year:
The naturally universal moment of nostalgia and sentimentality: Months move quickly as we’re living (or fighting) through each day. But so often we forget to pause and reflect on the mountains of seconds we’ve left behind. December 31st urges us to honor this elapsed time and to give space for daydreaming about what awaits us over the next 12 months. This framing paints January 1st as a clean slate or a second chance for missed opportunities.
New Year’s Resolutions: When we give ourselves the time and mental space to reflect on such a long-term scale, it’s only natural to mull over what you wish you did or, more positively, what you wish to accomplish. While so many hand-wave resolutions as a cliche, I have no reservations against starry-eyed motivations to become a better person, to experience more life, and to reflect on past mistakes. In fact, I don’t believe we do this often enough.
Magazines and “lifestyle” influencers say resolutions should be measurable, trackable, and time-bound. But some of the most valuable catalysts of growth are impossible to predict, measure, and track. And frequently, in the midst of unexpected chaos, our outlined resolutions are forgotten. However, this doesn’t discount the months and the experiences gone by. We’re continuously growing, learning, and living—agnostic of whether or not we continue to hold onto our resolutions. By the end of the year, we’ve progressed in some regard even if we cannot see it. This emotional growth is incredibly valuable and so often overlooked, but impossible to measure. Yet we attempt to set measurable resolutions under the belief that accomplishing them will somehow contribute to our emotional growth (e.g. wake up at 6am, make time for friends, read 30 books). Except, we cannot use these metrics alone to measure what is holistic, atmospheric, and intangible. I believe the core of emotional growth comes from inevitable and unpredictable experiences, and how we choose to react to them. And at the same time, if we cannot reliably quantify this, then how can we know if we’ve changed at all?
a stranger in the rearview
My New Year’s Eve in 2021 was sharply juxtaposed by New Year’s Eve in 2020.
At the end of 2020, fireworks reflected off of chrome high rises and their light twinkled across the Hudson River. In this vignette, I was living in New York and surrounded with close friends in a 1 bedroom apartment. The ball dropped and we cheered while raising our red solo cups filled with cheap prosecco. I remember my eyes watering with immense feelings of relief and bubbling excitement. That night felt as if the denouement never came and so, I blindingly ran toward 2021; I was driven, eager, and naively believed I was invincible. Life, at the time, was comfortably stable and the year’s set timeline and milestones were shining markers to look forward to. My goals were simple: plant roots in San Diego, make time for my friends and family while still in NYC, and carve out space to create. They were tangible, achievable, and measurable.
28 days into 2021, the foundation beneath me began to crumble. And every month, every day, every minute, I felt the floor beneath me slowly deteriorate until it eventually collapsed.
At the end of the year, the bright-eyed girl who courageously ran into the new year with a herculean force was barely recognizable to the one quietly bundled on her sister’s couch. I was no longer living in New York; I no longer had an apartment to return to. Months swept past in an overwhelming and disjointed blur. Replaying the year in my mind was like watching a movie of tragedies in fast motion; the details were lost and yet I absorbed every emotion in each clipped frame. The dreams and goals I set at the beginning of the year were forgotten; I just needed to survive to the end of the year. Every resolution I confidently wrote down was covered in dust and remained unchecked.
As the New Year celebration reached its ending, the once glimmering sheets of snow were cloaked in the night sky’s shadow. Sitting on my sister’s couch, I wondered if 2021 was a failure; if being lost and uprooted implied I regressed from the girl who charged into the year with a seemingly unshakeable fortitude.
I asked myself, Did I grow from the person I was before? Am I happy with who I became?
I paused and felt my chest tighten, I think so.
the ghost of new year’s past
Despite unraveling in 2021 and forgoing my resolutions, my growth felt more tangible than in any year prior. I was closer to understanding myself; I knew the types of friendships I wanted to pursue and maintain; I became more confident in speaking to my convictions. However, if you were to ask me how I changed from who I was before, I couldn’t point to specifics. If recalling 2021 was a film played in fast motion, then 2020 was a borrowed ViewMaster 3D. Like a voyeur watching someone else’s memories, I could recall vignettes but I couldn’t truly understand her thoughts, feelings, or unspoken opinions. That version of me turned into a stranger, like a close friend who moved away years ago. While I felt different and felt I progressed in a positive trajectory, I wasn’t sure how nor to what degree.
We often measure emotional growth through comparisons of our past reactions or, more often, hypothetical assumptions. The problem with this is, if the person you were before feels barely recognizable, how can you reliably validate how this version of you would have actually reacted?1 If I can barely remember what I ate for breakfast,2 how can I remember what I was feeling a year ago or the thoughts that ran through my head when the world around me was rapidly spinning?
As science currently stands, we cannot speak to ourselves a year ago.
But, we can speak to ourselves a year from now.
a love letter
Going into 2022, I wanted to focus on my emotional growth. After the collapse of 2021, my emotional bandwidth was in debt and the seams of my life were well-beyond frayed. The thought of curating a list of measurable New Year’s resolutions felt exhausting and performative. 2021 was unpredictable and any long-term plan I tried setting and walking towards either ended in disappointment or led me down a path I no longer wished to travel. I wished to experience life as it came; to live in each moment; to embrace the unpredictable with grace, independence, and conviction. I wanted to prioritize, pursue, and reliably measure my emotional growth.
And so, I wrote a letter to myself.
In this letter, I poured my heart out. I reflected on the past year and the pivotal events that shook me; that breathed new life in me; that reshaped my trajectory. I wrote how I was feeling—the true and honest ones I was too afraid, too ashamed, or too proud to say aloud. And my unspoken fears that crept into my dreams and the anxiety-inducing unknowns that caused my stomach to drop and churn. And, finally, my hopes for what I wished to leave behind; what I wished to accomplish; what I wished to feel by the end of the year.
I addressed the letter to myself in December. By not opening it, I would follow a path influenced by present experiences, feelings, and intuition. And when December came, I could finally read it as if I were speaking to myself a year ago. I hoped to use it as a primary source to reflect if I changed or grew; if I were moving in a positive trajectory; if my paralyzing fears and the anxiety-inducing unknowns were courageously addressed; if the dreams and hopes became tangible experiences. But even if I read it and never addressed any of these worries or fears or hopes, then it’d be a soft reminder for the upcoming year.3 Or, conversely, if I had accomplished most of them or realized those dreams and hopes weren't truly mine, then I’d feel closer to knowing and understanding myself. When your values are a consistent guiding function which bring you joy, even without reminders, then those are the ones that are innately and intrinsically yours.
the reunion
When I finally read the letter a few days ago, a wave of emotions engulfed me. It felt as if it were written from a close friend who moved away long ago. Except this time, I knew what she was feeling, thinking, fearing, and hoping for. All unspoken thoughts and opinions were bluntly laid in front of me; they wrung my heart out. And she knew me better than anyone else.
There is something grounding and jarring to hear from the person you were a year ago speak directly to you. I could hear the worry and sadness in her voice, but also the unrelenting sliver of hope she believed 2022 held for her. In this moment, I realized the degree to which we can unknowingly grow within the span of 12 months. And yet, during our day-to-day, it feels as if we haven’t changed at all. December arrives and we ask ourselves, where did time go? When we reflect on the year in the present, time feels viscous as if it slipped through our hands. But if we were to step back, there are so many nuances we experienced which slowly shaped our thoughts, opinions, and trajectories. Hard lines we held a year ago soften; quiet convictions become foundations to our identities; passing strangers become fixtures in our day-to-day; past joys begin to surface again.4
And, unexpectedly, I felt deep empathy for who I was a year ago. How often do we allow us to feel this for ourselves? I wanted to hold her and tell her that, although life will continue to be hard in new and challenging ways, all of her worries and fears will fall into place, or at the very least, begin to. Reading this letter allowed me to feel closer to myself and cherish who I was then and who I am now. For once, I gave myself the space to celebrate how far I progressed rather than focusing on the mess around me.
To unravel means taking yourself apart, including what you once held as truth. This year, I realized there’s a continuance to this undoing. Because, perhaps, that wasn’t the shape you were meant to take. We cannot always fit within the same parameters and walls we once confined ourselves in. Unraveling simply means we outgrew who we were before. And while taking ourselves apart hurts, physically and emotionally, imagine the space we can recreate for ourselves when we give ourselves more room to breathe, to grow, and to rebuild. But to see that, sometimes we need a kind reminder from an old and familiar friend.
An interesting thought: I could easily say how my best friend would react or feel about anything at any point in time, but I cannot say how Erica-a-year-ago would’ve reacted. Either we have a tendency to prioritize understanding other people over ourselves or I simply lack self-awareness and long-term memory.
Trick question - I rarely eat breakfast.
But imagine if I forgot those concerns and never had a reminder to remember them. I’d be caught in a perpetuating cycle.
I always enjoyed writing but was never confident in sharing until this year—quite frankly I still feel a wave of anxiety every time I post. But, if you’re reading this: thank you, thank you, thank you. Writing on this corner of the internet and hearing your responses have given me comfort and unexpected newfound joy.