On the 30th and 31st of each December, Instagram is flooded with retrospective carousels, all your friends recapping the highs and, less often, the lows of the previous twelve months. The cynical part of me wants to label this vain and sentimental and dangerously reductive, even though I always do it myself. And maybe it is. But I also think the exercise of scrolling through your camera roll and choosing ten photos to convey something about your year compels you to take stock of what happened, and how you approached it, even if that nuance is lost in public translation. The photo of friends at dinner that reminds you of something you said that night. The selfie which features anxiety masked as joy behind your eyes. The screenshot of a text that mattered in the moment but you’ve already forgotten. They can feel banal, these little images we choose to take and selectively share, but they are fragments that comprise self-presentation and memory. That makes them precious to me.Â
Particularly this time of year, I find myself wishing I had a camera roll to scroll for my Mom, or a history of Instagram recaps that display what was important to her when she was 22 or 35 or 50. I crave a firsthand digital archive to tell me things about her life that she can’t articulate anymore, and in its absence, I am relegated to her thin Facebook history and secondhand accounts. My Mom’s dementia has taught me the value of preserving a record of how we think; it is as vital as remembering what happened.Â
I, the digital native, will leave far less to my children’s imagination. I’ve been selectively sharing on social media since I was fifteen, and I hope that my writing - both privately kept and publicly released - will fill the gaps that images can’t close. Vanity aside: to know oneself, and to be known, is a huge and fragile privilege. It’s a lesson that feels tattooed on my brain, and I think it’s the true aim of reflecting and sharing at the end of any year. To harness an understanding of yourself in this time, and in effect, to be better-understood by the people who know you.Â
In that spirit, a selection of moments that I want to remember from 2023!Â
On a brisk Sunday afternoon, Jonathan and I decided to walk through the park to get to Marija’s. Sophia was playing in her first violin recital of the year, and she invited us to hear pieces she’d been workshopping at her teacher’s apartment. I could tell Jonathan was flattered to be included; their friendship still felt new.Â
The Eagles had just won the NFC Championship, and the whole city was draped in green and white. Philadelphia was holding its breath for the Super Bowl, and I was holding my breath for Hope to get engaged as I sat at Fiorella’s. A couple of friends were doing a Zoom sound check for the Yao and Braden families, who were beaming in from North Carolina and Minnesota. I texted Orly, who had somehow, improbably, just landed.
Our first night in Italy was Caroline’s birthday, and after taking a short nap in the bookshelf-lined guest bedroom, we rallied and piled into the old Kia. The McCloskey family’s steed looked more like an armored vehicle than an SUV, and it handled the mile-long gravel driveway with experienced grace. Top 40s radio punctuated our chatter as I peered out the window, trying to get a glimpse of Arezzo whizzing by.Â
It was a perfect evening in Red Hook, in the low 80’s as the sun set on the water. My parents reclined in their adirondack chairs as Strong Rope Brewery buzzed in the background. You can see the Statue of Liberty from here, Lin. Look, my dad said, pointing out at the water.
Cold sun glinted across the remaining leaves at Sagamore Hill as we trudged up to the old house where Theodore Roosevelt lived and died. 150 acres of land encircled us and stretched towards the bay, the stables and gardens of the summer White House preserved as if in amber.Â
Ok, that’s all from me in 2023! Thank you for reading, for giving me and my writing space to be known this year. I’m wishing you a shining and happy 2024. And if you’re still debating whether to post that Instagram carousel before tomorrow night: do it.Â
All my love,Â
Olivia