Hindsight is 2020

As I’m sitting here welcoming back the sun during this 2nd week of winter, on these days leading up to the new year, I’m contemplating the past 12 months – it’s been crazy for sure; lot’s of rapid and unexpected change. Change can be so damn hard, and yet we fight it with every ounce of our being, which is comical considering it is the one constant in life. We’ve all had to adjust to a new “normal” and had to forgo lots of things we wanted to do. On the flip side, I feel like I made good use of my time for the most part. I experienced some new things I wouldn’t have otherwise. Sure, I’ve had my moments of sadness, anxiety, and deep despair, and discovered a new fondness for whiskey, but I also found a lot of joy. I attended my first ever “drive-in” concert, I learned to play my ukulele, I mastered virtual teaching on the fly, I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to homeschool my littlest (a dream I’ve had since my big kids were little), we get to spend our days home with our old dog, we’ve been granted more unscheduled, less harried time, and I even extended an olive branch to my arch nemesis.

To my dismay however, I've noticed a new trend in people; their perpetual hate for, and eagerness to end 2020 (now I’ve personally never been one to wish away time – I feel it’s too precious and rapidly vanishing even at it’s worst). They complain about 2020 the way Republicans complained about Obama; constantly and repeatedly defend it’s horridness by any means; from the fender bender they got into, to their roof leaking, to a medical procedure they need, to the death of a celebrity, the illness of a loved one, to social injustice, to waiting in lines at the grocery store, to losing their job, to the passing of their beloved pet, to the end of a relationship, to their fun times being cancelled, and so on, and on and on it goes… “Just make it stop” they say. “I can’t wait for it to be over” they say. Allegedly all of their suffering is to blame on this year. They just can’t wait for it's departure. As if the day the Gregorian calendar changes is going to magically make all their suffering, sadness, “bad luck”, and a global pandemic go away.

Now I’m not dismissing the significance of all the aforementioned things mind-you. They are terrible, and of course deserve our grief, frustration, and sadness. However, I ask you how exactly is it different than any other year? I mean at it’s most basic level. All of these things happen all the time. The rate at which these things happen ebbs and flows like the cycle of life. Yes, there’s a new virus in town, wreaking havoc on us all in one way or another, but what good came out of any of it? There are two sides to every coin.

What if instead of wallowing in our sorrow and anger, justifying it at every turn, maybe we find joy in our gains. What did we learn this year? What if we changed our perspective? What if instead of being constantly dismayed by our perceived problems, we just sit with the uneasiness of this past year? - Really the discomfort of our lives up until this point, because ultimately, that’s what it is. No one wants to sit with their shit. I mean that on a physical, emotional, and spiritual level. Being stuck at home means we are forced to take a good long look at ourselves, and that’s fucking uncomfortable.

What if we talk about 2020 as the year we learned so much about ourselves?... The year the Tower came crashing down, the year medical science stepped up to the plate under pressure, the year Mother Earth started regaining her balance, the year we got to slow down, the year we got to start something new, the year we cleansed with all our tears, the year the cosmos reminded us of our place in the universe... “Sometimes you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right”.