Goodbye 2021, Hello 2022

Friday 31st December 2021

There is a strange comfort in an ending. Specifically, when you know the beginning will be the same. The terrifying part is the unknown.

I am going to university next year. After more than twelve years in school living with my parents, I am going into the big bad world filled with sparkling street lights, independence and living by myself in a foreign city.

For the first time in my entire life, I will be spending New Year's Eve in Cape Town instead of my hometown. Even now I can hardly go to bed, fizzling with anticipation. My new 2022 planner has already been bought, I am more than ready to write down a list of New Year's resolutions I will actually succeed in achieving. I know this because I managed to achieve most of the big one's last year:

1. I actually launched the website.

2. I started a podcast that I have consistently recorded for even if I did not upload all the recordings.

3. I started my school's first-ever newspaper, a dream I had since I was a little kid.

4. I did volunteer work at a creche where I helped teach school children basic English

5. I interviewed and educated people on gender-based violence in South Africa.

6. I finally lost some weight while healing my connection to food

7. I accepted my queer identity and came out to so many people this year

8. I wore the suit that I wanted to for matric dance (Which is a big deal to me because I was planning on forcing myself to wear a dress even though the dress do not feel totally accurate for who I am)

9. I started looking for opportunities to share my writing and was more successful than I ever dreamed I could be.

10. I overcame major hurdles in my mental health and I know have so much more energy than before.

In March 2022, all of this was impossible. Yet now I'm here.

Things do get better. Seek help because you deserve to live a life where you can be proud of who you are and feel safe and happy in expressing that.

https://www.therapyroute.com/article/helplines-suicide-hotlines-and-crisis-lines-from-around-the-world

After looking back on this year, I realised that I am capable of anything that I put my mind to. You are too. Let's grow in 2022 together.

To a new year, from the founder of the YSA platform

Zukiswa Mbalenhle Mhlongo