Old photos look better the longer you wait. So do hard years, once you’ve lived past them.

Time changes what you can see in something. The photo you hated at sixteen looks fine at twenty-five, because the embarrassment has worn off and only the information is left, and difficult years go through a version of the same process. That does not make the year good or the difficulty worth it. It means your current reading of it is not the final one.

If you are in a bad stretch, you do not have to find the meaning in it now. Keep a few notes about what is happening, for a version of you who will see it differently. Then do the next ordinary thing.