Dear 2021 New Year

Dear 2021 New Year,

The year 2020, tried it’s hardest to get the best of us. In some cases, it did. Devastating fires in Australia and parts of the U.S. A global pandemic shut down the world and took many lives. Murder hornets, impeachment of the president, elections, Harvey Weinstein was convicted in his sex offender trial, stock market crash, BLM protests for things that have yet to be resolved, Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested for her role in the Epsteien sex ring, just to name a few.

Kobe Bryant, his daughter and several others died in a tragic accident. Chadwick Boseman, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Eddie Van Halen, Alex Trebek all also passed, and that’s just the tip of the iceburg of those who passed away. It does not even include all of those who passed from the pandemic (in addition to those who died of non-related tragic causes). Not to mention the bombings throughout the world, and Prince Harry and Duchess Megan quitting the royal family, and transitioning from the UK, to Canada, to the United States of America. Some of these are more in the traumatic category, and others are more in the more dramatic, but both will effect everyone on some level. Some will fall into how it affects us politically, and others will affect how we look at life through the spiritual, emotional, social view points.

With the pandemic came masks and shut downs of basically everything (and the political and health dramas that came with that). So many negatives came with the year, but there were positives too. Traditional schools were forced to learn how to do school virtually. Parents had to learn to balance work from home and helping their kids with their schooling. Friends and other sources have stepped up to help parents who still had to work full time despite the school situation. In some cases, students fell behind regardless of what was done. In other cases, students who were already behind were able to catch up. Others were able to at least maintain, or improve when schools returned to some version of formal structure (whether it be home school, complete remote learning, a hybrid schedule or in person full time, and doing the safest option that worked best with each student).

The end of 2020, and the arrival of 2021 won’t make everything that happened in the last calendar year just magically disappear. However, this should be a year of healing. Will the Covid-19 virus be wiped out by December 31, 2021? Most likely not, but great strides could be made to have some version of control over it. Will businesses start to thrive again? Some will, some didn’t make it through 2020, some will fail this year, and others will be formed, as some skills and products have proven necessary for our “new normal”. Faith communities have adapted to work around the needs of their members, while still doing their best to keep them safe.

In our family, we have lost several friends and family members over the last year. Some we knew were coming due to health issues that were already present when the year set in. Others were related to the Covid-19 pandemic. We have had several family members develop new health issues (that aren’t Covid-19 related). We have confirmed what we already knew about each others learning styles, and we have been able to adapt, to the kids have had many leaps in their life skills in addition to their school related ones. Several home improvement projects have been completed, at multiple homes of those close to us. We have learned to be creative when communicating and seeing our friends and family. Video conferencing when needed and creative social distancing and sanitized events as well. We had two new babies born in the spring of 2020, one just before the pandemic hit, the other a month in.

So for 2021, we are planning to using our newfound skills learned in the last year to continue to grow in the new year. We plan to be intentional with every decision, and everything we do. Will 2021 be better than last year? In terms of world events, probably not. Yet, we can be intentional about making the best of the cards we’ve been dealt, and make our own little corner of the world a little bit better. Will it be ALL sunshine and rainbows? No, but there will be sunshine and rainbows, and we can’t appreciate those without going through a few storms. After all, instead of telling our grand kids how we had to walk uphill to school in the snow both ways, we can tell them about the year we had to fight for toilet paper, and had to order many items to be delivered to us, for many different reasons.

So, while I refuse to jinx it and declare “2021is going to be my year,” I will live intentionally to make it at least a little better than last year.

Sincerely, Me.