A Farewell to Twenty-Twenty

Photo credit: Easton Roberts

As the close of 2020 quickly approaches, I want to sneak in a few more thoughts. This probably means I will not have time for a good edit (sorry, mom). If you are good friends with me some of these thoughts may feel a bit familiar as I have been mulling them over for a few weeks now.

I think we all laugh sardonically to ourselves when we think of how we entered 2020 with all our travel plans and goals. If anything, I feel a little proud of the humor this has produced on YouTube, thank you Julie Nolke. I will never forget the moment when the whole world changed for me. It was a Friday in mid-March. I was walking home from the wine shop with something delicious for the festivities planned for the next day when I received a text message informing me of a lock-down that would change everything. I think I must have had an idea that it would not just change my plans for the weekend but that there was a deeper implication of that text message, because the sinking feeling I had was a thousand degrees past disappointment over changed plans.

And here we are on the cusp of a new year, the world still struggling along with a problem it cannot quite seem to fix. I feel like I skated thru this year without really being touched by the reality of the situation in that I have not gotten sick and by and large my friends and family are okay. I did not lose my job; I was able to work continuously. But I did not do just fine. I do not think anyone did. Because you cannot. You cannot know about that much pain and suffering around you and be fine. You cannot be surrounded by uncertainty and fear and not be affected. You cannot be deprived of in person contact and not be impaired. I had my fair share of sleepless nights and anxiety. I was an overachiever when it came to the quarantine fifteen…more like quarantine twenty-two… It was. Overwhelming.

But before you stop reading because you are not in the mood for a downer, keep going, because there is an interesting plot twist. I finally bit the bullet and started preparing a planner/journal for 2021 and was really surprised about how I was feeling. Positive. I felt, I feel, positive. How is that? It is not as if things are back to normal yet. While I did not get super fit, learn French, or take up baking, I did end up growing, and I bet you did too. (When my editor reads that last sentence, she is going to tell me there are too many commas. I stand by each of them.)

I am taking some valuable lessons with me into 2021 and I hope these lessons continue with me even when things return to normal. Never again will I take for granted a friend inside my house, giving me a hug. The next time I am on an overnight flight I will not feel agitated that I am cramped or that I cannot sleep, I will be so incredibly grateful that I get to travel. I will know that I can take things one day, one week, one month at a time and adapt to whatever comes at me. I will remember that sticking to my purpose is more important than sticking to my plan. I appreciate on a deeper level that my actions affect the people around me in ways that may never be known to me. I will continue to keep in contact with my friends and family that live far away because my eyes have been opened to different forms of communication available to me. Understanding these things will only enrich my life.

I hope that you end up buying or creating a 2021 planner. I hope you write down some things you have purposed for yourself. I hope that you do not worry too much about whether you should buy another pair of sweatpants or some dress pants instead. You have had nine months of training in uncertainty and so you are conditioned for more uncertainty. You can adapt to it. You have developed a muscle that you did not have at the end of December 2019.

I would love to hear your takeaways from this year. Leave them in the comments below or drop me an email. You will have to excuse me now; I have some loved ones to message.