“A spoon full of sugar makes the medicine go down.”

I’m going to use this phrase as an analogy for my year in review of 2021.

The “medicine” is the reality of depression, the bitter reality of life, and how difficult it can be to swallow.  The “sugar” is the support of the people who love me and choose to stick around. My old friends, my new friends, fiance, and family. They are my sugar, my sweetener of life.

I’ll be honest. I will not look back on the year 2021 with undiluted pleasure.

2021 was a year of loss—a year of loss for many people and for me.

About 385,000 deaths were reported in 2020. In 2021, the COVID-19 deaths surpassed that, according to CDC data.

I lost my job, my boy, my sanity, my motivation, my inspiration, some friends, most notably, my overall direction.

Most of my friends post a positive year in review, but sometimes, being real means being a little pessimistic. I want to discharge my negative thoughts and experiences over this past year like an avalanche. So after the dust clears, the natural, peaceful habitat can resume.

At the beginning of 2021, I was laid-off from a job I loved. Right after that, my dog, whom I had for over 15 years, his health started to decline, and in June, I had to put him down. My world became unhinged, and I cried every day for several months.

The storm that was created out of my sadness, turned into depression, a tornado, destroying everything in its path.

With no job and no purpose, I began to turn into nothing—becoming an extension of my couch. My fiance left to work in the early morning, and he’d come home in the evening to me still lying down.

Feeling utterly desperate and pathetic, I decided to do something rather silly and uncharacteristic. I sought out a friend group on Instagram.

If I can’t find a job, maybe it would help if I find friends? Making friends as an adult is not an easy task. If you’re not in college, not employed, and can’t go out because we’re in a pandemic, how is it even possible? Well, that’s why there is social media.

On a sunny afternoon in the middle of summer, I joined a coffee date with the Women of Monterey, a social platform that aims to “redefine community for women on the Monterey Peninsula.”

I met a group of ambitious, beautiful, engaging, intelligent women. Women who I once aspired to be. I’m not trying to sound too dramatic, but that day brought me back to life. Literally…

Having friends is vital to your mental health, and I learned just how important it is and how much it helped.

I’m going to dictate a whole blog post to the Women of Monterey in more detail later, but I just wanted to touch on it for now.

If you’re going through a dark time, reach out. Someone will grab your hand. The Women of Monterey was the hand I needed.

Although I struggled and grieved the rest of 2021, having those ladies made 2021 bearable.

This new year brings a lot of promise. I have a few interviews lined up, old friends and new friends’ support; 2022 is about looking up and forward.

Death to 2021 and to all the negativity that loomed over me. The medicine I had to swallow to get through it.

Cheers to the new friendships I made this year who became my sugar, the sweetener I needed for a bitter and brutal year.

Here’s to the birth of 2022 and the new opportunities on the horizon.

SSxx