Every year doesn't have to be a 'Big Year'.

2022 held a lot of promise, huh? We were finally out of lockdown after lockdown. Seeing friends? Back on. Going out to restaurants and parties and concerts? All about it. It was meant to be the year everything turned around for us after the mess that was 'the pandemic times'.

Except it’s reached late December and I’m not feeling it. Sure, I had a fine year. It was decent. I worked. I went on a few good holidays.

I’m thankful I haven’t had a bad year. But when I open Instagram and see everyone’s reflection posts, I feel kind of sh*tty. It feels like everyone spent 2022 going on WILD overseas adventures and MOVING CITIES and GETTING MARRIED and HAVING BABIES. All these massive life milestones! Some people have even had multiple milestones in one year.

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So while I’m thankful I didn’t have a bad year, this kinda-nothing one makes me feel like a failure. This year, the coolest thing I have to show for myself is my new robot vacuum. (Actually, he’s pretty cool.)

I think this end-of-year anti-climax feeling comes down to two factors. Firstly, I had a lot of expectations piled onto 2022. I needed it to be the year of wonder and awe and Big Stuff because 2020 and 2021 were so boring.

But also, it’s very easy to forget that sometimes, you just have years.

Just years. 365 days. A turn around the sun. You eat, you sleep, you raise kids; you go to work; you walk dogs and see friends. You might take a few holidays that are great but not life-changing.

Guess what. That is so normal. In fact, it’s necessary. We need these mediocre years because life isn’t meant to be constant soaring highs, because if it was there would also be constant painful lows.

Do you see the word 'mediocre' and flinch? Same. But that’s because we consider mediocre to be a dirty word. Mediocre = boring, when really it’s anything but. The mediocre parts of life are where all the most beautiful facets exist.

Mediocrity is all those sunny Saturday mornings my partner and I spent walking our dog together. Mediocrity is every Friday when I’d visit my parents and Dad would get us coffees and little biscuits that we’d share. Mediocrity is immersing myself in Emily In Paris for three days.

As acts, these seem boring compared to New York City skylines and romantic proposals. But as feelings, they’re incomparable. Mediocrity is where love and friendship and family and peace live. It’s home. Stability. Unashamed enjoyment. It’s where we grow and develop in subtle, incremental ways so we can handle the big stuff when it does eventually arrive.

Because – not to get bleak on you – yes, you’ll have Big Years in the good sense down the line, but there will be Big Years in the bad sense. We’ll lose loved ones or get sick or have life-altering shifts we weren’t expecting. Maybe you’re at the end of one of those crappy years now. These are the years where we lean on all the strength and solidity the mediocre times have given us.

These are also the years where we truly recognise the joy in the mundane. Because there’s always joy to be found in life. Even when things are pretty joyless.

They’re just little moments. Tiny stuff you might forget. But don’t think for a second they’re meaningless. You can have just as much euphoria from a tipsy date night with your spouse as you can from standing on a pebbled beach in Greece. 

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A friend of mine, Jenni, told me she has used one of those One Second A Day apps for the past few years to chronicle these little moments. As someone who struggles with depression, she says it’s helped her gain perspective. "Nothing does me more good than to look back over (even sh*t) months, and realise that there were often moments of grace or happiness or laughter that I’d forgotten about."

My method? I’m buying a journal and writing down some of these lovely, mediocre moments from 2022 to wrap up the year. It doesn’t even have to be about family or love. I have one Sunday in mind where I deep-cleaned my entire apartment, sat on the couch, and felt so good because everything was tidy and organised.

So sure, you didn’t tick any bucket list moments off in 2022. You didn’t kick any goals. No milestones were reached. But look back and I promise you, there were these quiet, magical moments dotted through those 365 days. Friendships deepened, relationships strengthened, work goals were inched toward.

Next time you don’t have a Big Year, look at it this way. Whatever year you had was temporary, and it’s likely it prepared you for an amazing one in the years to come.

Feature Image: Instagram @melissamason_.