2020 in Hindsight
A global pandemic. Endless Breaking News and reconstructed Fake News. Protests crossing state lines and city limits cheering-on for social justice. The phrase “I Can’t Breathe” becoming as common as seeing Masks Required signage. Empty streets and rises in vacancies. New technologies, new vocabulary and hell let’s just make up new phrases, too. Quarantining, social-distancing protocol, PPE, WFH, flatten the curve, and of course “Say Her Name.” Collectively trapped inside, all working from home, we managed to turn video-conferencing software into a verb — aka Gone ZOOM-ing. And, let’s not forget, an “unprecedented” Presidential Election largely fueled by division and deceit.
(Breathe)
2020 was a truly transformative year. Broken up by waves of shared grief and intense bursts of collective effervescence.
The universe found ways to present situation after situation forcing me to get comfortable with the unknown. A year of waiting and retrofitting. First our dog beat cancer. Then my Mom beat cancer. Suddenly the entire world was struggling to survive.
Never before was being immunocompromised something I had to talk about (so) openly. I went months without seeing family and friends. Sacrificed most in-person celebrations for the greater good, which meant I missed a memorial and later a funeral. Put frankly, I haven’t had any fun with any of my friends in over a year now and it feels like forever. Eventually I had to stop taking clients in the car with me altogether. (Part of my job that I find especially fun) In May we got a “quarantine puppy” and in July we took her on our annual trip to the family lake house in the Adirondack mountains — no flights for me, road trips only. It was one of the three times I actually got to leave the city, allllllll yearrrrrr longggggg.
And, while I hate admitting this, it may have taken a pandemic for me to give myself the permission to slow down. Permission to grow quietly. To learn to let go of expectations and find contentment with all that I already have. More than anything, 2020 gave me gratitude.
Gratitude and hope. So instead of a New Year’s Resolution I’m setting an intention — to only reach for what I need in 2021, and to let go of what I don’t need to carry.
