I’ve been known to pass judgment on quite a few things: books, movies, strangers, etc. So on the cusp of my 23rd birthday (which I cannot believe is less than a week away), I would like to take a moment to review this year: the year of 22.

That night that we played a terrible Taylor Swift song too many times, my life was completely different than it is now. I was still in college. I lived in Pittsburgh. I had just broken up with my boyfriend the previous week.  And now nothing is the same. I graduated from Duquesne. I got my first job and moved to New York City.

It is extremely accurate for me to say this has been the hardest year of my life thus far.

For those first couple of months of 22, I went through a period of what I like to call “lingering teenage drama.” I had to be very strong for a group of people while I myself was trying to overcome a truth I had never expected to have to accept. People were making up and breaking up and I was doing what I do best: playing the witness, not talking about the things that were bothering me because if I did, that would be selfish. I don’t pretend to be a victim. Comparatively, the things that were happening to me were a cakewalk in many respects. But that’s sort of the problem, isn’t it? That we can’t compare our trials and tribulations to those of other people.

There’s this saying and I can’t quite remember what it’s from, but it goes something along the lines of “Do you know why babies cry when they are hungry? When they are tired? Because it is literally the worst thing they have ever experienced in their short lives. These are the worst things that have ever happened.”  This leads me to a quote from John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars, which has resonated for me on a lot of different levels. It’s this one:

“When you go into the ER, one of the first things they ask you to do is rate your pain on a scale of one to ten, and from there they decide which drugs to use and how quickly to use them. I’d been asked this question hundreds of times over the years, and I remember once early on when I couldn’t get my breath and it felt like my chest was on fire, flames licking the inside of my ribs fighting for a way to burn out of my body, my parents took me to the ER. nurse asked me about the pain, and I couldn’t even speak, so I held up nine fingers.

Later, after they’d given me something, the nurse came in and she was kind of stroking my head while she took my blood pressure and said, “You know how I know you’re a fighter? You called a ten a nine.”

But that wasn’t quite right. I called it a nine because I was saving my ten.”

Pain, then, is relative. Heartbreak looks different on everybody. I try to be a quiet sufferer and instead be stoic for everyone else, I attempt to be a rock. But this year, I realized how I’m not necessarily very good at that. I hold things inside and then I lash out because no one is paying attention to me. I have gone through painstaking measures to not be seen and then am angry that no one bothers to notice. That’s its own kind of selfish, you know. Expecting people to just be able to read your mind. Thinking that you are better than others because you don’t project emotions and then are upset because people didn’t just “know.” I’m learning and failing and trying to rectify this. It is very difficult to change.

I’ve also had to make some extremely difficult decisions. Moving to New York is by far the hardest thing I have ever done. I was so afraid to leave Duquesne because it was the best thing that had ever happened to me. It had given me so many wonderful people. It had taught me what I do and do not want in this life. But knowing and acting are different things. Just because I knew what I wanted didn’t mean I was ready to make motions to achieve.

I don’t pretend to be a very brave person. In fact, if we were at Hogwarts, Gryffindor would probably be the last house I would be sorted into (with the actual ranking being, from most to least likely, being: Ravenclaw, Slytherin, Hufflepuff, Gryffindor. Just an FYI). I’m also not very good at asking for help from others because I have always attempted to be self-sufficient and independent. I am learning that being brave is necessary because if you’re not brave and you don’t take chances, nothing ever changes. And I think that’s what scares me the most- remaining in the same place because I’m afraid.  There is this quote (If you haven’t noticed, I sort of live my life in quotes. It’s sort of my thing) that makes me realize how that’s not any kind of life at all:

“How does one become a butterfly? They have to want to learn to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.” -Trina Paulus

During 22, I have been too afraid to change a lot of things. Too afraid to stop relationships that no longer serve me or grow me. Too afraid to move on and stop feeling sorry for myself. And for 23, I hope that I want to fly so much, that I give up all of the things and people that have been holding me down.

Additionally, I hope that during 23 I stop being afraid of being wrong. It has been a long, hard road to come to the realization that being independent is a good thing, but not to the extent that you’re actually stopping yourself from personal growth. Needing other people is not a weakness. But being completely reliant on other human beings is. There is a necessary balance in there somewhere. I’m still trying to find it, but considering that I am only about to be 23, I think I need to realize I’m not going to figure the whole universe out just yet. It will come to me in bits and pieces, in more and more journeys around the sun.

So for 23, I hope that I continue to be brave. I hope I forgive and forget. I hope that I remember to treat myself well and to treat others well.  I hope that I learn and grow. I hope that I’m better and stronger and wiser. But I also hope that I make mistakes. I hope that my heart breaks again and that I learn to grieve better. To grieve stronger.

More than anything, I hope I give myself the benefit of the doubt. In the scheme of things, there’s no way I have everything figured out. But here’s to having to figure less things out, and being able to rely on myself for knowing what those things are.