This year will be a year we all remember. There’s been highs and lows. Missed parties, canceled vacations, milestones reinvented. But more importantly loved ones lost.
Throughout this year, I’ve written here about how our city has preserved, pivoted and risen to the challenges in front of us.
While you’ll be reading this in the beginning of December, I’m sitting here in early November as news of various vaccines fills my newsfeed and TV screen. Hope seems on the way. Life could return to normal at some point in 2021. But what does that actually look like?
The COVID-19 pandemic and everything else that’s come with 2020 has changed me. I am not the same person who started off Jan. 1, 2020. I don’t even remember what ambitions and plans I had then. And it doesn’t really matter.
I’d like to think, like many of you, that I have preserved, pivoted and risen to the challenges. I’ve made sacrifices, however small and seemingly insignificant, to help bend the curve. I’ve missed family gatherings and birthdays. I’ve had to make tough choices at work about budgets, what stories we tell and my coworkers’ capacity.
I’ve been resolute in wearing a mask and participating in social distancing. How I’ve wanted to just hug my best friend these last nine months or see my mom who lives in Florida, especially during this time when she would plan her yearly visit.
But what I’ve learned about myself is that I’m determined. I’m determined to not give up. I’ve learned to be patient — with others and myself. I’ve learned to find solace in small, ordinary things, from the letter carrier who walks past my house every day to the mundane noises of my home with its low buzz of appliances and chirping birds.
I’ve learned (not mastered) how to talk about the hard stuff with family (yes, politics and racial injustice) and have tried to find some common ground. I am thankful for those conversations as it reminds me there’s a way back and a way forward.
Reading more books and watching less TV have been like a balm to my soul (though I’m grateful for every morsel of The Great British Baking Show). And I’ve fully embraced loungewear, letting my naturally curly hair take flight while learning to love myself without a stitch of makeup.
So while there’s still much that needs to be righted and fixed, I hope that like me, you have been able to find those moments of joy, growth and discovery within yourself. As we look forward to what 2021 brings, let’s go into the new year as kinder, gentler versions of ourselves.
