2020…the year that WAS! We are now 27 days into the new year and while most of us feel hopeful, it feels like more of the same. I can’t think of any other time in memory when an entire year was collectively bad for everyone as 2020 was. The bad news just wouldn’t let up.
2020 welcomed us quite eerily in January with the death of Kobe Bryant whom no one could have guessed if asked to. Shocking to think that it’s been a year already since his unfortunate demise including others on that ill-fated flight. He had impacted not only the world of sports but millions of people around the world whom he inspired to dream and work hard to achieve. His death if only we knew, was a premonition of things to come in a year that was full of twist and turns of the worse kind imaginable.
Then we got launched into a pandemic that has and is still devastating so many lives – not only claiming loved ones but leaving so many homeless, jobless and driving millions into depression and suicide. As if the punch wasn’t hard enough, our national heroes and treasures died as well. Who knew Chadwick – The Black Panther would be gone in 2020? or John Lewis? And so many others.
I’ve always been an anxious person but the events of last year sent me into a near panic attack. The uncertainty brought on by the pandemic compounded by an election year like no other was nerve-wracking. Watching the news always filled me with a certain dread – if it wasn’t the politicians insulting each other in ads, it was the shootings on the rise and the fear of experiencing blatant racism for no reason.
Then, simply going grocery shopping seemed like a suicide mission – wearing a mask but still being afraid of the unknown. Each of us looking at the next person skeptically wondering if they are a carrier of the virus – knowingly or unknowingly.
Yet, here we are – 27 days into the new year and we are not better-off; if only slightly than we were last year. 2021 looks to be more of a continuation of 2020 with new variants of the virus discovered every week thus far. And the attempted siege at the capitol on January 6 may be a foreshadowing of what is to come.
But I’m hopeful for 2021 regardless. And although i didn’t make any new year resolutions this year (gave up on them a long time ago), I’m choosing to be positive. I’m usually a skeptic with vaccines as i know a lot of people are as well but I’m committed to do my part to eradicate this virus. I’m trusting that a lot of people will too and put us in a better place by fall this year.
I pray that with the activism of last year and beyond, that real change begins to happen in our communities where we are more sensitive to each other’s plight, more empathetic and kind to one another. That we will seek to add joy whenever we have a chance and embrace our differences in love.
I’m committed especially to find the happiness all around me and hope you are too. Because if there’s one thing this virus has taught us all, it is – that time indeed waits for no one. So let’s not wait to be happy – to buy our dream car or home, go on a vacation or get into a relationship to be happy. Happiness is all around us, we make happiness and we should choose to see and revel in it.
I wish us all a happier, healthier and kinder 2021. Hip Hip hip…
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