I don’t know anyone who can’t wait to give 2020 the boot.
This long year of grief, loss, anger, hated, injustice, hunger, illness, forest fires, super storms, deception, confusion, fear, so much fear, has left deep wounds that will take years to heal.
Will 2021 actually be any better? January 1 is just the day that follows December 31. It only feels different because we deem it so.
But we’ve learned a thing or two this awful year about wrestling with risk and uncertainty and adapting. And we can decide to push the reset button whenever we want. Not just on January 1, 2021, but on every new day that dawns. It is really up to each and every one of us to choose to do better, be kinder, act with courage, speak out, bridge misunderstandings, lend a helping hand, smile at a passing stranger (even with only eyes above masks), give thanks for what we have rather than focus on what’s missing.
By this time next year, I hope and pray the pandemic is but a blurred memory, our government is no longer a perpetual dumpster fire, commitment to justice for all is our lived priority, controlling climate change is a given, and that our lives, if never truly returned to normal, whatever that means, are at least more joyful.
It’s up to us to make that happen, moment by moment, choice by choice.
So, bring it on, 2021.
Evelyn Herwitz blogs weekly about living fully with chronic disease, the inside of baseballs, turtles and frogs, J.S. Bach, the meaning of life and whatever else she happens to be thinking about at livingwithscleroderma.com. Please view Privacy Policy here.
Image: Aaron Burden
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