2020 is hindsight

'Which of all my important nothings shall I tell you first?' - Jane Austen

Man, 2020 was a hell of a decade, yes?

But let me tell you something. You never have to do this year again. You made it through 2020, and well done. There was nothing easy about it. Next year may not be easy either, but what it will not be is a repeat of this one. And you come into the year '21 with new strengths, new insights. Maybe with some new wounds too, new burdens. But take heart my friend, we'll go together... 'on this uncertain road that lies ahead. Our faithful God has always gone before us, and he will lead the way once again.'  

Come with me as we whirl back through a year so full that I can scarcely keep track of all it contained. A year full of both world turmoil and personal tragedy for so many of us. Below is a very limited list of some of the things we've been carrying this year:

Wildfires, a deadly pandemic, quarantines, shortages, unemployment, masks and gloves and sanitizer, no sports or olympics or museums or libraries, or travel. Virtual church and school and family gatherings, brexit, NYC a war-zone with the virus, plane crashes, ufos, the president is impeached. We lose Kobe Bryant, T'challa, RBG, Sean Connnery, and many others closer to home. George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, police brutality and murder, lynchings, protests and riots, curfews and teargas, widespread civil rights marches. Instability in Russia, neo-nazis in Germany, explosion in Beirut, floods in Indonesia, riots in Delhi. Earthquakes, volcanoes, locusts, murder hornets. A threatened election, conspiracy theories, widespread misinformation. Poland accidentally invaded the Czech Republic (don't worry, Switzerland has accidentally invaded Liechtenstein at least three times in recent years).   

Seem a bit heavy? That's why you're tired, dear ones. And you know I haven't counted your own personal struggles in this summary. It seems with every mounting tension in the world came more news of crisis for our near and dear. This year especially, we must remember:

We're all grieving something: show grace  

Just now, lay down the burden that has been this year. Our minds are full and our hearts are heavy. In the new year you can be strengthened by your knowledge, made gentle by your pain, and made wiser by the suffering we have witnessed and borne. But you don't need to carry the responsibility, the turmoil, the confusion, or the despair of 2020. You don't have to force life-lessons, or perfect understanding. 

In order to meet this year with the wit, wisdom, heart, and humility it required, we took in a lot of information. Mostly it was necessary, but it has been unendingly wearying. Did anyone else read Digital Minimalism this year and go, yeah I'm really going to implement that: and then holy hannah did life hit the fan?

'still, everything happens for a reason is no reason not to ask yourself: am i living it right?' -John Mayer

But however we got here, and whatever we've got left, take a deep breath now. Inhale. Exhale. Even as connection gets more difficult, our awareness of our fellow-man has been strengthened. We're sadder perhaps, but stronger too; fuller. Confused, maybe; but I hope, wiser.  We leave those in God's hands now, and breathe again. You get to take all that you have and are into the coming year: your glory and potential, and your wounds yet to be healed. But not the weight of this year. Leave that behind.

 

“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.” -LOTR 

there was light

new life and babies

teatime and boldness

 

and grief

 

Great grief 

 

Hope for change

 

 Birthdays

Work and rest

Loss, and empowerment

dear ones, and the great outdoors

walks by the river, day after day. bridges at dusk

masking, working, recuperating after the audit...

and art and art and art

 

I am tempted at this juncture to insert a suitable quote about art. Perhaps that one about "then what are we fighting for" but unfortunately, Churchill didn't actually say it. Or that one by Lewis where he says that friendship and art give value to survival. Which is true. But the greater quote states that the reverse isn't true: that friendship, philosophy, and art have no survival value; and the longer I live the more I find this to be unequivocally false. (If you're wondering, I do believe Jack would have liked me better for arguing the point, rather than swallowing it.) I think I am eminently more likely to survive, thrive, and reproduce (see definition of survival value) when supported by friendship, fueled by philosophy, grounded and inspired by art. What better year to establish and assess such a tenet? When each of these three are tested to the full. Some crumble and must be remade. But without them, I never would have made it this far... 

  “For what matters in life is not whether we receive a round of applause; what matters is whether we have the courage to venture forth despite the uncertainty of acclaim.” - A Gentleman in Moscow

I'm beginning to feel old. Don't laugh, I know I could have two-thirds of my life ahead of me still. But there does come a certain tipping point in your twenties when you feel much more pre-thirty than post-twenty, college kids feel like children, and you realize really and truly: this isn't a transition period or a trial run: this is the adulthood talked of and prepped for: the life I'm living right now is who I really am. This is your life. If there's something you wanted to do with it, the time is now. If there's a person you want to be, show up as her. Every day is a vote for the person I want to be. Habits, time, money: it's okay to spend these on things that make you happy. On things that make your life the one you want to be the Leading Lady of every day. Life's too short to procrastinate that novel, to wear underwear you don't like, or to not have a thermos that suits your morning commute. 

"After all, did not wine improve with age? Was it not the passage of years that gave a piece of furniture its delightful patina? When all was said and done, the endeavors that most modern men saw as urgent (such as appointments with bankers and the catching of trains), probably could have waited, while those they deemed frivolous (such as cups of tea and friendly chats) had deserved their immediate attention.” -
A Gentleman in Moscow

And so I subscribed to the NYTimes' Sunday paper this year, even though I don't have the perfect spot to sit and read it with my coffee in the morning.

Amidst the general chaos of December I jumped on an inspiring idea, and I'm halfway through writing a novelette

I loaded up my car with thrift store stuff and went to my sisters to decorate for Christmas

(Also taught my nieces and nephews to do crosswords and sudoku)

I wrote up my resume

I started taking walks at dusk, over the city bridge, just as the lights came on

I illustrated my book

Sang in church

Wrote songs and poetry and spoken words

Learned to drive a motorboat

Discovered I could watercolor

Was prayed over many times as the Weight came crashing down on me and I could feel nothing but the pain. God was gracious, and I can see again, and hope and pray and sing. 

Next year, maybe I'll dance.

I didn't get to many of my resolutions for this year, because 2020, but I exercised diligently until the gyms closed, I read way more than 52 books this year, I found healthcare, whitened my teeth a little, wrote sonnets and worked on fiction...

And held onto hope.

Unsurprisingly, I can't recall all of the things I did this year, small and important. Or big and memorable but swallowed up in the tumult. I expect you can't either. But I'd love to hear if there's something that stands out to you from your year. A milestone, or a joy that helped carry you; a defining moment. Remind me of what I've forgotten, or tell me something I don't know.

This year was hard, but I'm holding on, like you. We will not back down from truth. We will learn to be bold. To heal. To find joy. To reach out to each other across our differences. 

We will remember this year, but we will not carry it with us.

And in the riot of this beautiful, aching world,  

"when you can't look on the bright side, I will sit with you in the dark"

 “He had said that our lives are steered by uncertainties, many of which are disruptive or even daunting; but that if we persevere and remain generous of heart, we may be granted a moment of lucidity—a moment in which all that has happened to us suddenly comes into focus as a necessary course of events, even as we find ourselves on the threshold of the life we had been meant to lead all along.” -
A Gentleman in Moscow

I'm off to listen to John Mayer and drift off to sleep, dreaming of a new year as fresh as a spring day.