Decent Debutante

First off, let me slap 2020 in the face. Ahhh...that felt good. Now, onto 2021. I see you lurking, year. Come into the light. There you are. You don’t have to hide. And already, you are showing signs of being unruly. You saw what I just did to last year. Do you want the same outcome?

I have great, rational hope for you. I think you can be more than an improvement to that cheap streetwalker of a year, 2020, but a dignified lady. You can be beautiful. You have the potential. Just don’t mess it up.

I’ll be thirty-three this year. That’s the same age Jesus of Nazareth died. I’m comparing myself to Him only because He was the most famous 33 year-old of all time. Will I earn such a following as His? Who cares. I’ve got just one life and no outlook on an afterlife.

Dearest 2021, you’re going to see the Summer Olympics in Tokyo. Don’t destroy this. No terrorist attacks, no infighting, no sex scandals. Be aware there will be people who just want to see you look like the previous year. Don’t let them win.

You’re going to see more vaccinations for COVID-19. More lives will be saved because of the brilliance of scientists in their rationally self-interested pursuit of knowledge and life-saving solutions the world over.

Please don’t allow more behavior like we saw on January 6 in Washington D.C. at the Capitol. I almost pushed you down a flight of stairs, 2021. That display shook up and cast an ugly light on so-called Trump supporters.

Be an elegant darling, 2021. Ensure that justice arrives for the fallen like Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. I know you like women and men, lady. As a gentleman I can respect that. The unrest your previous girlfriend, 2020, rivaled the 1960’s. Do you really want to repeat that? Do you truly wish to see more disgusting displays of force and indignity? I think that you have too much class to stoop so low as the previous year. The year 2020 was such a bitch. But I know that you are above that.

You’re a party girl, 2021. Just wear a mask and try to keep six feet away from me, though. We can be an item, but until you get tested for the coronavirus, you’re definitely in the friend zone. I can only imagine you will work smart to avoid being the blazing dumpster fire that was 2020.

If you will allow me, I’d like to go back to December 31, 2019 at 11:58 PM. I held up my sparkling grape drink, along with my family, and repeated an amended variation of a toast from the 2001 film, Blow: “May the wind always be at your back and the sun upon your face. And may the wings of destiny carry you aloft to dance with the angels.” Not bad, eh? Well, that wind was a gale and the sun nearly burned me and those wings melted, and I fell back to the Earth like Icarus.

So where do we go from here, 2021? Are you finally going to be what everyone anticipated? Now, personally, every year can be traumatic for the individual, even without the pandemic and social instability. People lose family members, experience financial hardships, and take on illness or injury themselves. While this is inevitable every year, why not make it less of a burden on the individual, and allow truth to reign?

For all the ways you can refuse to be the magnum opus to the prelude 2020 may have been, I implore you to be a decent debutante instead of a whore; make reason, individualism, and capitalism hallmarks of your growing and evolving character. Then I won’t have to slap you, too!