2020: Release

2020 was the painful and yet necessary release of unhealthy relationships, the acceptance that things would never be as I had hoped them to be, and the change that was required in order to move forward.

2021, will be a time to find something worth holding onto, or at the very least, a time to get comfortable with the uncertainty of release.

It didn’t start out as just any year. On a cold, snowless Friday, he left work early at my request. I climbed the stairs that scaled the escarpment, until I reached the top, huffing and puffing and as happy as ever. My belly protruded as far as a dinner plate, and I was ready for this baby to greet us Earth-side. As he parked the car and walked toward me with a grin, there was some part of me that knew this was a significant moment, and yet my conscious reason had no explanation. That evening, just as I would have hoped to be drifting off to sleep, so began the journey of parenthood. An uncertainty that all parents must learn to become comfortable with.

There is always something that catapults one into a new mindset. Some kind of external force that changes the winds within. In our case, this little girl somehow gave us the ability to see that life is more precious than we had realized, and our time here is to be savoured, not endured.

But, we get used to things. We are comfortable. Perhaps that is why she changed it all, because nothing about learning to care for an infant is comfortable. Something about our lives did not feel right, for a long time, but neither of us seemed to be able to figure out how to change it. We lived in what we thought of as community, but these days it would be better described as jaded cohabitation. Our interactions with these people we shared such intimate space with had slowly changed over the past few years. Crossing paths in the kitchen was often a nuisance, rather than a blessing. We hung tightly to the logic of why it made sense to live with other people. That logic often seeped into the feel-good part of our brains that meant we stayed, because it was cheaper, because there were people around, because life was meant to be lived communally. How would we raise a baby with no help?

Then comes the pandemic. Another seismic shift in perspective. Once again we have less control than we thought, and we may not always have the luxury of time to waste. Suddenly, they were gone, and life felt lighter. When they returned, I wondered where my happiness had disappeared to.

There were other relationships too. The parent-child bond that seems unbreakable. The imbalance of power creates a dynamic that follows us day in and day out. We get used to adhering to it because it is easier, because that is how we have always done it. Then we grow, and change, and not all change is well received. We try for reconciliation, we accept our faults, but they cannot. We are no longer solely a product of our childhood. They begin to look different, and we feel like we have been staring at a picture for twenty seven years, unable to see the forest for its trees.

So, as 2020 grew closer to its natural end, so did our time living in worlds that kept us small and fearful. The fear of change no longer loomed larger than the gravity of staying the same.

Release.

With release comes grief. Loss of what could have been. An existential crisis of instability, mingled with the hope of something better. Before there is better, there is just air. Just ideas, longings, painful memories and regret.

Where to go from here?

Into a new year. To find that we can make life-changing decisions, the only thing stopping us is the decision. It is not insurmountable to pack all of our things into a station wagon, and set off across the country to nestle in the snow-covered mountains for a while. It is quite a nice view actually.

2021, you are in some ways the height of our expectations. Just as 2020 held the anticipation for a new being, you have the hope of truly living.

May we hold on to things worth holding onto. Create as much as our imaginations can create. 2021 will be exploring, discovering, and starting.

Cheers to a confidence in possibility.

2021.

With release, comes freedom.