This year, I picked up a regular babysitting job for a family who lives near campus. A few months ago, I was driving the girls home from dance class. Typically when we’re driving I’ll play my music at a regular volume and they’ll hum or sing along in the backseat if they know the song, or sometimes even if they don’t. This time, however, I was playing the music quieter than usual, not for any particular reason, but I was hesitant to turn it up because of what the girls were talking about in the back seat. One of the girls said that she was confused because a few weeks ago, she lost her tooth, but she was sleeping at her grandparents’ house so the tooth fairy didn’t come. One of the other girls responded to this by saying “you probably put it in the wrong spot. You have to put the tooth in the middle of the pillow or else the tooth fairy won’t find it”. They continued debating the logistics of tooth placement and other factors that would affect whether or not the tooth fairy would come on a given night for the whole car ride home. Listening in on this conversation brought me such a strong sense of nostalgia, I think it was relatively fitting that this happened at the end of 2019.

Typically, I’m not one for the whole ‘year reflection’ thing. Even when I saw posts on Facebook about the decade in review, I was still pretty averse to it. Being born at the back end of the ‘90s, I kept thinking how could these people possibly have so much to reflect on from the 2010s; most of them hardly even started puberty at the beginning of the decade. Personally, I can hardly distinguish my 2010 memories from my 2007 memories, I just kind of clump them all together as my childhood. But these girls made me think, and the more thought I’ve given to the idea of reflection, the more appealing it’s become to me. At the beginning of this past decade, I wasn’t too far off from contemplating the logistics of where to put my tooth in order for the tooth fairy to receive it. I think I’d probably lost most if not all of my baby teeth by 2010, but the sentiment and the innocence remains the same. Although I obviously don’t have much to compare it to, I think the 2010s have been the years of the most growth I’ve seen in myself, and likely the most growth I’ll see in quite some time. Not to say that I don’t foresee anymore growth in the future, but there are some things I’d like to touch upon that I think are incredibly notable in my growth as an individual throughout these last 10 years.

First, and perhaps the most important, I’ve become extremely comfortable in my own skin. Towards the beginning of the 2010s (and here I’m mostly referring to ~2012), I was not at all content with a lot of different parts of myself. The most obvious part being my sexuality, but more than that, I remember spending a lot of time in my early teenage years being so concerned by what others thought of me. Being liked by everyone seemed like the most important thing in the world, and if someone thought lesser of me, regardless of who that person was, that was the end of said world. I alienated people because that’s what my peers did, I put people down because that made me and my friends feel better, I prioritized spending time with people who did not at all enrich my life over the things that actually did matter, and I referred to people who held the most disingenuous values and engaged in behaviors that I vehemently disagreed with as my closest friends. Now, I could not possibly care less what others think of me. I choose to spend my time with only the people who raise me up, not the ones who hold me back. I speak up about the things I believe in, and only engage in behaviors that I deem beneficial to my own well-being. Throughout the 2010s, I cut the toxic people out, and welcomed the stimulating people with open arms. I can confidently say I don’t think I’ll ever put up a front to get people to like me again.

Building off of that, I have since brought arguably the two most important aspects of my identity to the forefront of my persona. At the beginning of the decade, I remember vividly how prominent homophobia was throughout every medium of culture. The word ‘faggot’ was nowhere near censored; I remember some of the people I used to call my friends using that word well into high school circa 2014. As an adolescent struggling heavily with their sexuality, I’m sure you can see why this is so troubling. There was not a lot of queer representation in the media, at least not the mainstream media, and I remember when Macklemore’s “Same Love” came out how groundbreaking that release was. I came out publicly in the fall of 2016, which still sounds crazy to me. In 2010, the thought of willingly coming out absolutely repulsed me. And that was still true in 2011, 2012, probably through 2015. To think that I’ve been so open about this aspect of myself for almost four years now, and how much queer representation has changed in such a short amount of time absolutely blows my mind.

I remember, like it was yesterday, how angry I would be every Sunday morning when my parents would come into my room and wake me up for Sunday school. After my Bat Mitzvah, there was going to be absolutely no more Jewishness for me. After all, the religion considered me a woman by then, and to me, that meant I would make my own choices and no one could stop me, especially not my parents. I remember giving them what I thought was an ultimatum, but they obviously saw right through: I would become involved in a Jewish youth group if that meant I didn’t have to go to Hebrew school anymore. Well, I did become involved in a Jewish youth group, and I did stop going to Hebrew school, but to say there is no more Jewishness for me is extremely false. In the latter half of this decade, I have become more in touch with my Jewish identity than ever, and a highlighted cause of that change was my trip to Israel in 2016. Since the very first day of that trip, I have been absolutely dying to go back.

Finally, over the course of the 2010s, I rode the wildest rollercoaster ever - my mental health. I first began the struggle with my mental health in middle school, roughly 2011-2012. That was a time when mental illness was still pretty frowned upon. The notion of “just stop feeling sad” was alive and well, and you definitely could not speak openly about mental illness without judgment. Thankfully, when I got to high school, I got to be much healthier mentally. I deeply immersed myself in activities that gave me a purpose, and I began to build a much, much stronger support system for myself. By the time I got to college, I was of the belief that I was, for the most part, cured of any mental struggles. I am now of the belief that no one is ever 100% mentally healthy, and that’s okay. For the better part of my sophomore year, and through last semester, I was really struggling. And when I speak about that struggle, I often find that people’s initial reaction is to ask me what caused it. Truthfully, I don’t know what caused that struggle. In middle school, high school, honestly until recently, I thought I needed to justify my mental hardships with a reason. But when you come down with, say, strep throat, or a UTI, or appendicitis (perhaps the best example), can you really, confidently, without a doubt pinpoint what caused that? Why should depression, anxiety, any illness that lays in the mind be any different than one that lays anywhere else in the body? I have no shame in speaking about mental illness now, and that is definitely something that has evolved within me over the course of the last decade.

When I look back on all of these changes, I realize that a lot of them have to do with the advancement of acceptance within society. While our society still has a very long way to go, I think it’s okay to still recognize and celebrate how far we’ve already come. I am proud of my Jewish identity, I am proud to be a part of such a resilient queer community, and while I may not be proud of the struggles I’ve faced with my mental health, I am definitely proud to speak openly about them. I would not have been able to grow such a strong sense of pride in all of these aspects of my life had it not been for the people around me and in the media being so openly proud. I think everyone should live their lives with pride, both for themselves and for others. You never know who you might be helping.

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