One night before the end of the semester, my housemates and I sat around our dining room table. The porch light shined through blinds lazily half closed, making up for dead bulbs on the ceiling we never got around to changing. A cheap candle burned in the middle of the table, underneath cheetah print decorations that clung to the walls from a birthday celebration a few weeks before. And, obviously, throwback songs from 2010 played from the speaker.
I leaned back on the legs of my chair so far that I became completely wedged against the wall. As I chewed on a stale marshmallow, I watched my housemate, Sarah, at the end of the table quietly shuffle a deck of cards, preparing for what was probably the 50th round of gin rummy that week. She stopped to take a sip of her $2 Trader Joe’s wine before dramatically declaring, “You guys. This is a SNAPSHOT.”
We paused. A what? She gestured to the cards, the candle, the people at the table. “This is a moment we’re going to remember forever. Everyone take a mental snapshot, right now.” Obediently, I looked around the tiny room that had become the heart of our house and studied the friends who had become my family.
In this particular instant, nothing was out of the ordinary. In fact, everything was so in the ordinary that a stranger could walk through our front door on Hill Street at any given moment, and there is a decent chance we’d be drinking at the same table, shuffling the same cards, sitting under the same light bulbs that would, undoubtedly, still be out.
For a second, I wondered what about this specific moment could possibly warrant any special attention. But as 2020 comes to an end and I reflect on the last year, it’s become way more clear why Sarah stopped us that night.
In my very first blog post, I made a promise to myself to take each moment at a time. When I wrote that post, this mentality wasn’t as much of a choice as it was a basic means of survival. When you’re emotionally drowning, it’s nearly impossible to think about anything past your next breath.
Little did I know how increasingly relevant this resolution would become as the year erupted into further and further uncertainty. Around March, as every plan in existence got canceled, the world was forced to join me in my commitment to take each day as it came. I remember watching the news after being sent home from school: everyone desperate for clarity, for answers. See, I’d whisper to my dog, curled up on a chair he isn’t allowed to be on. There’s no choice but to take every day at a time.
As the moments came and left, I watched the year unfold like a video game, with battles and levels increasingly out of my control. Before this year, I naively held onto opportunities, relationships, and experiences as if they could never go away. My ignorance made it all the more painful when these same things were taken right before my eyes.
I have not spoken to a single person who hasn’t experienced some sort of loss over the past 12 months. Amidst all the chaos we’ve seen burst into flames, there remains a tattered string of empathy loosely keeping everyone together. As different as we appear, we now all share an unspoken, universal understanding of the year endured in some way or another. 2020, we’ll agree: what a shit storm.
But as always, when struggle visits, it so kindly leaves behind a gift in its traumatic wake. This year, as tough as it's been, has gifted me with a newfound appreciation for moments I used to glance over without a second thought. I’ve realized life isn’t so easily defined by and confined to major milestones like graduations and birthday parties and weddings. Instead, life is simply a culmination of tiny snapshots.
2020 will not be remembered for any big attractions or monumental life events. To me, 2020 will be honest conversations, walks around my hometown, Betty Crocker cakes, road trips up north, dancing in the kitchen, (failed) mixed drink concoctions, and a whole lot of gin rummy.
While the nights in our little college dining room are anything but unique right now, I understand that they too will not last forever. The spring will come, and something special will be stolen from us yet again. But when the time comes and our lease ends, I’ll be confident that not a single moment was taken for granted. And thankfully, I’ll have a million snapshots to prove it.