The Next Year Cometh

It’s 2021. Duh.

I am sitting here on my little couch with my MacBook open, next to my handsome husband with his ToughBook open. I’m writing my first blog for 2021 and he’s writing a review of his 2020. We’re like the people in “You’ve Got Mail,” me on my apple and him on his PC. Thank goodness we don’t have to deal with dial-up America online Internet, though. We had a nice calm New Year’s Day following a nice calm new years eve chatting with friends online. We had yummy pho for supper and the pets are fed. It’s neither hot or cold in our little condo. The only thing I might want to add to my current situation is a cuppa tea and a shortbread biscuit. I am in my pyjamas and I am ready to write.

It’s a time to be reflective when the new year comes. It is time to look back and look forward and examine. An unexamined life isn’t worth living, right? So, bare with me as I examine and reflect, and perhaps even pontificate.

I think 2020 was overall a rather shit year. I mean, some things were great, and I feel very blessed, truly… but for our collective selves, it was what many call a dumpster fire. Yes, it could have been worse… I suppose. More people could have gotten sick with COVID-19 and people I know and love could have died… We were quite lucky to keep our jobs; in fact I was at work everyday during the original lockdown.

I could write a whole blog on just that first 30 days of Covid. The anxiety that I felt walking through the doors at my work was traumatic, and yet the immense gratitude I felt because I got to see people face to face everyday and talk about what we were going through together made it bearable. It was an anxiety equalizer. I remember talking to some of the guys at my work and realizing that the fear of the recent “coronavirus” (before we started calling it Covid, even) was something we were all experiencing together. I remember coming home and washing my hands and changing clothes and sitting down and touching my face with veracity. I watched Dr. Henry everyday and Dr. Campbell too… I started taking Vitamin D again, and wore masks when we were in public places. Chris did all the grocery shopping when we couldn’t do a pick-up, and we usually did pick-ups. He was working from home, and it was arduous. He worried about me at my work, I think… and he was literally tortured by our young adult cat. He did start running more, which was great for him, but it still sucked. I missed seeing friends, but we video chatted. Part of me even thought that it was kind of cool, that as people got more accustomed to video chatting, it might be easier to keep in touch with friends far away.

We had to cancel our honeymoon trip to the UK. I still haven’t met my sister-in-law’s husband or their kids, my nephew and niece. I still haven’t seen London. I will meet them and the aunts and uncles that couldn’t come to the wedding too, and I will be the quintessential tourist (with a British partner) someday… but who knows when.

Skip to now when I miss seeing friends in a way that is truly visceral. I now check Covid numbers on the various health ministry dashboards almost daily. I wear one of my many masks whenever I’m in public. We stream lots (we got HBO now so there’s lots to stream). I just spent a two week vacation with just Chris and me and the pets, and that’s pretty much it. I mean, I saw people through cameras and some when we dropped off Christmas goodies, but not the same. We made the best of it. We got a jar and we filled out little cards of things to do. Some fun, some chores. We would take out 2-3 a day. We did all kinds of fun stuff. We had a beautiful Christmas and I am grateful for it.

But I am SICK of this pandemic. I am very much looking forward to when I get the vaccine (probably spring for me as I am an essential worker) and I long for time in a pub or at friends’ houses without fear of killing people with a virus, or getting it myself.

I also reflect on something slightly hard to write. My mum died before Covid with ARDS which is what people often die from when they get Covid. Hers was from viral pneumonia, which is again very similar. I got to be by her side for her seven weeks in hospital. I was there when she took her last breath… I got to hold her hand. We got to have a funeral for her. If she had been alive during this, I would have had to make choices about seeing her or working… If she’d gotten sick I wouldn’t have been able to see her and Peter wouldn’t have been able to come visit. I am, in the strangest way, very grateful that she didn’t have to suffer this pandemic. That thought makes me guilty and sad, but I have to tell the truth on New Years Day. That’s a thing, right?

I am saddened by all these things, but the sadness… the frustration… I need to find a silver lining. I need to see what I can learn from it to make it a bit better. So, as Clive says, we need to observe and be open to what we can learn from suffering. Here I am now, trying to observe it. What can I learn from the past year and how can I take that with me? This is the question I will reflect on for a bit. I don’t have the answer. What do you think for yourself? What can you take from this and learn? How can you see the good in all this? What are your observations?

Segue…

I want to start thinking of what I will do in 2021. Not resolutions, bleh… but dreams or goals or aspirations. Here’s my list. I’d love to know yours.

1. Read at least 6 books this year (I used to read A LOT more before… trying to get back to it)
2. Write a blog every month!!!!
3. Do 45 minutes of “exercise” (according to my apple watch) and get 10,000 steps 6 times a week (I’m pretty close to this now already… and I’m not going to let my stupid apple watch tell me when to stand unless I want to. I am in control, not the watch)
4. Play as many board games as Chris wants to with me
5. Do not buy any new clothes except at the beginning of seasons. This one will be hard.
6. Find ways to make the somewhat mundane parts of my job more meaningful (meetings, anyone) and see my vocation in all of it
7. Trust that when I mess up and don’t do something on my aspiration list, know that it’s okay. It’s not about performing and it’s not about being good… it’s about being authentically content, knowing that sometimes the world sucks and sometimes it’s me that sucks.
8. Hug everyone I know as soon as it’s okay. (Be prepared, and be warned.)
9. Take pictures of little moments
10. Go to church as soon as I can again, and open my mind and heart as much as I can to what God is teaching me… now and always.

So, to sum up (hehehehe) I am focusing on gratitude and learning from 2020 (kind of the same as always) and I am looking forward with some aspirations, but I know I will mess things up… and it will all be okay, and I will do it again next year.

Love you from my head to my toes… thanks for reading.

That’s all (for now).