This year has been so full of so many things that I’m not quite sure where to begin.

It is certainly not an easy thing to try and make any sense of. So, I’ve decided not to pretend to.

I don’t know what my own future looks like, let alone the world’s. So instead, here is my attempt to offer as much comfort as my words are able.

Last January I found myself sitting on the grass in front of my old school in California watching people pass by, laughing with each other, telling jokes that surely only they could understand.

I was in a particularly happy mood that day, for no reason other than things were finally okay- imperfect, but I found joy in each day in a way I hadn’t in quite a long time.

I remembered in that moment something I had once read, a quote I now know as written by Zora Neale Hurston.

It went as follows, “There are years that ask questions, and years that answer them.”

I was completely set on the fact that this year would be one that answered. A year that would make the past pain understandable, and that would make all the others before irrelevant. That by some force of magic, I had found that quote at the exact right time to let me know all of my confusion would soon disappear.

Looking back now, I can’t help but laugh. For in all of my, and all of our, wildest dreams I’m not sure we could’ve predicted what was to come.

Shortly thereafter, of course, great change began to happen all at once. So quickly that I’m still not sure I’ve taken it all in. Day by day, we started to understand the history we were experiencing. The good and the bad. The despair and the hope. The life and the loss. Perhaps the biggest shared feeling of all, though, is the pain.

The amount of pain this year has held for us, as one country and as one world, is insurmountable. I will never try and tell you that there is reason for so much loss and grief, for there never really is.

But I will tell you that we will feel so much more than what we feel now. We always do.

I will tell you that I was wrong when I thought a year that answered would bring me clarity, or relief. In actuality, this year, one so full of questions, has helped me understand. Has helped me mend my broken pieces back together, even knowing that I have only succeeded in becoming more confused.

I don’t think we must know what we are doing to feel mended. I think all it takes is realizing (and accepting) that we never will.

So I guess this leaves us with a question- what do we do with this pain?

Well, in one of my darkest moments, one of the people I love most in this world pointed out all of the beautiful parts of it to me. The way the birds sounded, the way the clouds moved throughout the sky, and even the way the wind shook the leaves. She made me notice them.

If I could give you one piece of advice, not for what to do with your own great pain, but what to do in spite of it, is this-

Spend your days noticing.

Hold the pain, but notice the good.

Because sadness is so very real. But so is courage. Somewhere inside you there are both. Don’t trick yourself into thinking you can only possess one or the other.

If you have lost someone this year, my heart is with you. I am so sorry for what you are feeling and the person you are living without. All I can offer to you is the fact that grief is just love. You are full of love, still. Pain can be a furious beast, but love is an even fiercer friend. Keep it close.

If you are struggling to make it through each day, I see you. I have been you. There is so much life ahead, that I promise. Time will heal you, but so will other people, and they will do it much quicker than time.

If you need help, if you want to talk, I am here. We are each a part of each other. Pain can be as small and hidden as we allow, or as vast as can be- a thing that fills up an entire room. It is not easy, but it is the price we pay for being alive on this Earth, and I think maybe it is worth it after all.

I wish you and the people you love more good than you know what to do with.

May this new year answer your questions, and ask of you brand new ones.

We will all find our footing once again.

I am rooting for you.

Daisy Devine is a senior at the Enumclaw High School.