Dear 2019,

As 2018 is coming to an end, I think about all I have accomplished this year but also all of the downs I have faced. As I had previously wrote an article about all of the wonderful things that have happened for me this year such as moving, getting a full-time job, having my own place, losing weight, starting graduate school, and traveling to Israel. With all of these great things that have happened to me, I am still struggling to overcome my worry about many of these current things and future things in my life and the things happening around me. With worry than comes less hope for me, which is not only saddening me but making me feel powerless.

I should have hope with everything 2018 has bought me, but somehow, with many of the horrible things going on in the world around me and inside my head, the worry increases, and thus the hope decreases. I feel simply, well, hopeless.

With shootings, global warming, poverty, high tuition rates, not enough jobs going around, mental health struggles (which is one of my biggest demons), diseases, deaths, racism, violent acts of discrimination, injustice; the list is endless. Although I had trouble accepting that these things may be out of my hands as I am just one person, I still feel powerless. With this, I still truly believe that as one individual I can still do so much to help the world, but with this said, I am still only one person and there is only so much I can do. This makes me feel powerless, hopeless, and thus worry.

My mental demons really drive me to not rationalize and focus on the bigger picture sometimes and realize the small changes sometimes as well. Take climate change, for instance, one of my biggest fears. This issue causes me major anxiety, as I adore nature and the beautiful things the world has to offer. I try to do so much like eating no meat, recycling, removing plastic, refusing to buy leather, driving less, shutting off the lights; my list is endless. Even with my small changes, I still feel hopeless as I feel many people do not care as the science is denied and it sometimes still feels like things are getting worse. But then there are those moments when I read something positive like the bees being saved, or cities going towards renewable energy. The hope comes back a bit but then goes away when I see bad news like more extinction of animals or how Trump is going to burn more coal. My hope gets lost and my worry goes up again.

This is just one of the few things I worry about. I worry about my parents a lot as well for instance. As they are heading toward retirement and still taking care of my six other siblings and I, I get worried about their stress and health. I dream of my parents being able to move forward with their lives without having to care for many of us, but it does not seem like it will be happening so soon. This makes me worry and my hope is lost once again. I try to find the hope in which I am their first child to move out, where I hope to set an example for my siblings, but I have seen not much motivation from a few of them, which makes me worry for my parents. I want them to live their lives, but I will have to accept that this is not happening for them right now.

With much information about my personal life given, I am asking you 2019, please give me hope or at least something to hope for so my worries go down. Living with several mental health issues is 100% making my fears and worries harder to deal with and worse. That is why I am asking for a sign, or some sort of light, whether big or small and shed some hope in my life that the issues I worry about will get better. I do not want to spend much of my life worrying for years to come. It is draining and tiring. Although worry is part of life, I do not want to keep worrying 24/7. I need this hope and I hope this hope will come, even if it is very tiny.

Wishing everyone finds hope in their life and has a great new year.

From,

Molly Cohen