My Note to 2021

In 2021, I got rejected from medical school.

I didn't score well on my MCAT and didn't have it in me to take it again. Embarrassing, right?

Although I refused to admit it for the earlier half of the year, it took a toll on my confidence and pride. I let myself miss out on a multitude of opportunities that I was fully qualified for, because of a tiny, but persistent, voice in my head telling me I didn't even belong where I currently was. There was no way I was going to reach for something I wanted if it was already a pre- determined failure.

My diet for the larger part of the year has been 99% carbs and I've gone to the gym, maybe, ten times in the last 365 days? I've spent most of the last few months feeling lethargic and detached from my mind and body.Probably due to a Vitamin D deficiency from barely leaving my apartment... even when I lived in sunny Los Angeles. It doesn't stop with my physical health, though. During the most of 2021, I neglected my mental health by drowning myself in extracurriculars, and refusing to truly acknowledge that there were parts of this past year where I had completely lost the person I wanted to become.

I hated myself.

I cried, A LOT. Sometimes for no singular reason other than the fact that my body and mind was torn to shreds due to the stress and strain of being a full time student in the middle of a pandemic. I was caught in a negative feedback loop that I rarely found myself having the energy try and pull myself out of. I had my first anxiety attack.

Like real anxiety attack. Where I felt like, at any second, I would implode and break down in front of everyone around me. Otherwise, I was in a constant state of distress. To the point where I completely normalized the feeling of not being okay. I had gotten used to the feeling of a foggy mind and lackluster outlook on life

There were points were I felt, and WAS, performative. That was a hard pill to swallow. The fact that I would share something because I felt obligated to share it, because for a period of time, there was a level of apathy attached to the things I would see on the news and social media. I felt like I had lost a lot in 2021. I lost friends and lost respect for people I used to hold in high regard. I lost hope surrounding a lot of things, something I'd never pictured happening to me. I became jaded in a lot of ways, and for a while, I let it consume me.

In 2021, I was tired.

However, in 2021, I also graduated from UCLA with honors and a few awards. I got into my dream grad program.... a program, I have to add, I would've never applied to had my best friend not forced me to do so. I learned how to go after opportunities without being afraid of failure-but I'm definitely still working on it, it's a hard habit to kick.

I moved back to the city I'd been wanting to come back to since the day I had left. I get to watch my baby cousins grow up and spend time with family I used to only see once every couple of years.

I learned how to stand up for myself and started making decisions for ME and no one else. In doing so, I began to reclaim an excitement about life that I thought was long gone. I learned the importance

of a real break, and that I was just as deserving of them as anyone else. I began to understand that taking time out of my day for myself is NEVER a bad thing, but a necessity. I grew my passion for photography unlike any other year in my life. I grew as a creative and as a business. I started to read again. Middle school Rhea is SCREAMING.

I started working with CBO's to do community organizing. I learned how to properly educate myself on things I cared about, and only speak on things I felt comfortable responsibly speaking on. I watched my friends succeed. I watched them get into their dream programs, and take their lives into their own hands. I made new friends. Incredible people. People I know will be in my life for years to come. People that make life happy, and remind me who I am and who l can become. I reminded myself that I can count on my friends. That I can talk to them and rely on them when I need someone.

In 2021, I irritatingly had my eyes opened to the fact that surviving is not the same thing as living. But this year? Simply surviving was an accomplishment in itself. You can't have successes without the failures. It's a fact that becomes extremely easy to forget, when all of social media is just the highlight reel of everyone's lives. I failed A LOT, in 2021. An amount I would normally be uncomfortable with. But I feel inclined to share with people how much I actually struggled, especially on an app like Instagram- where I carefully curate my profile to make it seem like I'm the perfect person/activist/student.

Spoiler alert: in 2021 I learned I'm not.