Words to describe past year: ‘Draining’ to ‘hopeful’

Relentless and disappointing. Messy and clarifying. Fragile and unexpected. Full of growth, grief, change and survival. Enlightening and tumultuous. Transformational and lonely. Exhausting, exhausting, exhausting. These were the words more than 200 of our readers used to describe 2021.

Zora Neale Hurston once wrote, “There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” Whether you’ve had a year of questions or a year of answers has always been a matter of personal perspective and circumstances. But while every year has its ebbs and flows, its triumphs and tragedies, its fond farewells and good riddances, there was widespread agreement among many of our readers: 2021 was defined, personally and collectively, by its twists and turns.

For many of you, 2021 was a year that depleted: Words like exhausting, overwhelming and relentless were by far the most popular ones people used on social media and via a call-out to describe the year.

Coming into January, Amy Chase, a 37-year-old project manager, was hopeful: She was pregnant with her first child, due in July. But on Jan. 6, the same day a right-wing mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, Chase discovered she had miscarried.

Because of coronavirus pandemic restrictions, Chase was alone in the doctor’s office when she got the news. Her word for the year was “draining.”

For many women, words like “disappointment,” “grief,” “rage” and “loss” defined the year.

“[Disappointment] surfaced all year, in all sorts of capacities,” one reader wrote on Instagram. “It was consistent.”

Vinnie Pizzimenti, 37, described the year as “frightening:” “It was frightening to learn how quickly disinformation could spread, and how readily people consumed it — to the detriment of public health.”

Transgender activists from Texas to Haiti described a “lonely” battle to push back against restrictive legislation and provide safe spaces for their youth. Asian and Asian American women described isolation and vulnerability as they reckoned with high-profile, violent attacks on their communities.

Other readers emphasized uncertainty: Quite a few of you felt “unpredictable” and “roller coaster” summed up your year.

Cristiana Jurgensen’s word was “unnerving.”

“Just when you get a grip and think you understand what is happening, how to behave and how to deal with it, everything changes again,” wrote the 48-yearold middle school principal, who lives in Saudi Arabia. “I wonder what new calamity will be waiting for me when I wake up in six hours.”

But 2021 was also a year of transitions. Our readers said their 12 months were defined by “resilience” and “growth”; it had been “clarifying,” “enlightening” and “revealing” — in good and bad ways.

Marcia Ximena Chong Rosado, 30, said the year felt like a “marathon.” She sought therapy for the first time in her life, she wrote, finally finding an intersectional therapist who could meet her needs. But not long after she started making progress, legislation changed so that she could no longer see her therapist, who practices outside of Chong Rosado’s home state of Massachusetts.

In an act of “radical love,” Chong Rosado left her job this year, a move she said was “a long time coming, and much deeper than the Great Resignation.” “I deserve better,” she said.

For 24-year-old Meital Smith, the word for 2021 is “anticipation.”

For the past two years, Smith, a recent art school graduate, has hit a number of milestones she had been working toward all her life: graduating college, becoming “a real adult.” But it felt strange and incomplete.

“I’ve just been thinking, for the past two years, ‘Oh, once this pandemic is over, I’ll be able to be in my twenties and be this person that can be young and free,’ ” she said.

Instead, she’s felt stalled: “I still think of myself as 22.”