I Swam in an Underground, Bat-Infested Cave, and It Taught Me an Important Lesson About Growth

Once I stopped crying, that is.

I spent the last day of 2022 descending into the pits of hell.

Technically, it was a "Cenote"—or an underground water cave—60 miles outside of Cancun, but the fact that I was 50 feet below ground in a place that was once believed to be ruled by the Mayan gods of death made it feel as close to hell as I ever want to get. It was dark, cramped, sticky-hot, and terrifying—and that's not to mention the dozens of bats that were flying around within inches of my head. I ran through every possible worst-case-scenario in my head—the walls collapsing in and trapping us, the ceiling collapsing in and killing us, a bat biting me and turning me into the female Edward Cullen—and decided that I had to get the fuck out of there.

Except... I didn't. Once my panic attack had subsided and I stopped crying for long enough to take in my surroundings (… and, regrettably, after yelling at my boyfriend’s family to PLEASE STOP LOOKING AT ME WHILE I’M HAVING A MELTDOWN), I realized it was pretty dang beautiful down there.

... I promise, there is a point to this that goes beyond an elementary school geology lesson. We're getting there.

The grotto, which is thousands upon thousands of years old (and, okay, may or may not have been used for human sacrifices), is covered in rock formations called "stalactites" and "stalagmites"—two words you may recognize from fourth-grade science class. They're created when mineral-rich water drips down from the ceiling and piles up, one drop at a time. It takes 100 years for them to grow a single centimeter, and some of them were as tall as I am.

When I sat down last week to think about what I'd accomplished in the past year, I came up with a very, very short list of things that basically amounted to living with a boy without physically harming him for leaving dishes in the sink, keeping a dog (but not a single plant) alive, and finding a therapist who takes my insurance. All great things, for sure, but not necessarily worth *~*celebrating*~*. I mean, they were barely even worth journaling about. And after a whole lot of years of big wins—traveling the world, getting my dream job, buying an apartment, finding my soulmate—I found myself scrolling through people's 2022 Instagram highlight reels wondering, "What in the hell did I even do this year?"

But then, as I stood in the pits of hell and learned about thousand-year-old rock formations in the midst of my end-of-year nostalgia, I felt like I was being smacked in the face with a much-needed lesson on growth.

The all-too-obvious metaphor here is that growth isn't something that happens all at once in those big moments. It's something that happens drop by drop, so slowly that you don't even realize it's happening until you look back and see how far you've come.

This time of year, the whole (extremely toxic) "new year, new me" mindset can leave a lot of us—myself included—feeling like we need to make big, sweeping changes to become better versions of ourselves by this time next December. But considering 80 percent of people give up on their resolutions by February 1st, that clearly isn't the way to play it. If the stalactites can teach us anything, it's that growth takes time and resilience. It takes committing to something and sticking with it, even when the results aren't immediately apparent.

Whenever I'm feeling like shit—which tends to happen pretty regularly at the end of every year—I take a second and ask myself, "If 12-year-old me saw who I was today, what would she think?" And even on my worst days, I know that she would be so, so proud. Sure, I became the big-time (digital) magazine editor that I had always dreamed of and get to live in a hot-pink studio apartment that pre-teen me would have loved, but while those things are great, they aren't what really matter.  What 12-year-old me, and even 21- and 25- and 29-year-old me, would be most proud of is the fact that I became the type of person who, when confronted with something she was scared shitless of—like, say, swimming in an underground cave—decides to dive in anyway.

A year ago, I'm not so sure I would have taken that (literal) plunge. And if I'm being honest, I can't point to any single moment or series of decisions that got me there. But as I sit here now, two days into 2023, I realize that those seemingly stupid nothings I accomplished over the course of 2022 aren't actually "nothings" at all.

Sharing my space with another person for the first time forced me to relinquish control in a way that was initially deeply uncomfortable (... it took me eight months to agree to let my boyfriend hang a single picture on the wall), and showed me that my way of doing things isn't necessarily the only way—or even the best way—to get things done. Caring for the happiest and most spoiled-with-love dog in America while simultaneously killing a fuck ton of orchids made me realize that I'm not going to be great at everything, and that it's okay to say "forget it" to the things I don't really care about so that I can focus on the things I do. And re-committing to therapy got me to a mental and emotional place where I could sit with all of these thoughts for long enough to stop talking about how badly I wanted to start writing again and actually sit down and do it (Welcome to my newsletter!!!! Like! Comment! Subscribe!).

These small wins may sound insignificant and don't exactly make for a FYP-worthy, Coldplay-soundtracked TikTok video, but they transformed me nonetheless—drop by drop, centimeter by centimeter.