New Year, New…Perspective?
When I think back to one year ago, I reminisce about a world that feels so foreign and beyond what our expectations of the last ten months could have brought us.
We were naive to the complications of a world that would be shaken in tumult simply from the unseen exposure to an unknown virus.
We were unresolved in our political climate as what felt like a cold draft hovered over much of the world. It parted ways to a heated and explosive culture barreling down on our nation.
We had intended to wander from month-to-month with our calendars filled in the anticipation of what was going to be the year of “perfect vision.” 20/20.
O. How blurred of a world it has become.
My year was just beginning. My life as a single-mom was coming to a halt as I eagerly accepted a marriage proposal from my very best friend and love of my life. 2020 was surely going to be my year. This was going to be it.
Only one month later, the world seemed to come to a screeching halt. We closed our blinds and covered our faces. We wore gloves in public and hid behind our televisions and computer screens, waiting for the next round of instruction to tell us just how bad it really was out there. We called friends and family with bleak encouragement as we cowered behind our own weary hearts. We forsook the gathering of ourselves…in every attempt to be safe.
It’s been nearly one-year since the pandemic officially began in the greatest country on earth. An anniversary that I feel like celebrating simply as a term of survival. I recall where I was as I realized the world would never be the same again. I watched as the streets around me cleared early. I recall the radio transmitting the governors orders to head home and stay there. I remember “just two weeks” echoing in my brain. Followed shortly thereafter by the phrase: “This can’t really be happening?”
Sometimes my memory fades. I wonder if it’s age, genetics, mom-brain, or just the chaos of the previous year taking it’s toll on my physicality; but when I consider it all, I stop to ask myself: “If I could go back to March..what would I say to that girl?”
Would I change my bad attitude when I heard school was canceled for 2-3 weeks?
Would I pout and wonder how they could possibly force us into evening curfews?
Could I handle not seeing my parents again for several months? Not letting my children hug them?
Would I let the chaos of this temporary world control my eternal choices?
Would I hand over my constitutional freedoms for sake of safety…again?
What words might I offer to my younger-self on the other-side of this runaway train?
It’s a New Year now. So let’s all be honest, we’re a little bit bitter. We’re a little bit salty and hardened at the insanity that the year of “hindsight” should have been. Confusion and chaos are served up in our faces daily, yet here we are. With a choice to make. Naivety no more.
In reflection? I couldn’t control the year of Covid. I will not reminisce gladly on the hardships that were brought on by a vicious virus. But what might I change if given the chance?
Perspective.
My year (and yours) did not participate as planned. But in new perspective…do they really…ever? No one ever welcomes midnight on New Year’s eve with the concern of hardship on their mind. But Hope perhaps?
My wedding was not held at the beautiful venue as planned: but we were still promised to each other in matrimony for eternity, forever and ever amen. And it was perfect.
My children never did return to their previous schools: but they were able to be held under the safe care of their mother whose employment allowed me to work from the safety-net of home.
My family is healthy. The family food business has flourished, and the world is returning slowly to its (completely natural) state of disarray.
It’s a New year. Bottom line? You can choose to be a new version of you, a healthier, happier, well-rounded and perhaps physically-fit person, but in all of that…don’t forget to take on a new perspective. We never know what lies around the corner of life…
But as a very wise man once said? “Keep looking up, that’s the secret of life.” {Charlie Brown}
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