2020 - Sighs!

 Here we are again... At the end of another year!

I had such big plans for 2020!

Yeah.... Sighs!

I really want to write some empowering, inspiring, hopeful words right now, but they're not coming. They will come again but not today.

I have never been one to think the clock ticking over to a new year is anything more than arbitrary. It changes nothing other than the number we have to write on dated material and resetting the tax year... It doesn't make us more whatever it is we want to be. It doesn't erase whatever bad we want to ignore. It doesn't change our habits or goals or daily lives.

There is some comfort in that as well as some discomfort in it. It would be nice if that tick would actually reset things and make them better. If it would push us into a new phase or place or purpose, but it doesn't.

I hear many people saying things like "I can't wait for this year to be over." and I've even caught myself saying it. Then I wonder why. I know there's no magic in the change. Yet, I desperately want there to be this year... Sighs! I want the magical change, the one that makes all the pain go away! I want to wake up on January 1st, 2021 and be in the world I want to live in with all the pain and divisiveness and hatred gone. I want to wake up and find life feeling easy again. Not that I've ever really felt like life was easy per se, but I want it to feel easier, or at least manageable again.

So, yes, 2020 has been a painful year for many of us, me included. It has been a year of loss and pain and discord. I have felt it in my soul. When 2021 gets here, I know there will still be pain and loss and discord. I know that my future holds pain and loss and discord. I also know that my future holds hope and joy and connection. I might not always get to choose which one I'm facing, but I get to choose how I respond to it. I can be strong and vulnerable and authentic even when it hurts like hell to do so and even when it feels like that strength and vulnerability and authenticity will only lead to more pain and loss and discord.

But, if I embrace the moment as it is, maybe just maybe I can influence the next moment... maybe... even if there's no magic to be found in the ticking of the clock. Because no matter what happens, the clock will keep ticking. The Earth will keep revolving around the sun and rotating on its axis. The sun will rise and set. We will live and we will die. The moments in between are what we have to leave the world just a little better than we found it. If we're not working to leave the world better than we found it, we are going to leave it worse than we found it.

So while 2020 comes to an end, the questions before us all is simple to ask but not so simple to answer. What will we do to make the world a little better than we found it? What will we do in the face of pain and loss and discord. What will we do in the face of hope and joy and connection? Will we be strong and vulnerable and authentic? What will we do with whatever 2021 holds for us?

I don't know the answers for everyone, but I know it's up to us to find them. and I'm willing to find those answers with you if you're willing to find them with me. Let's step into 2021 ready to make the world just a little bit better than we found it and whole hell of a lot better than 2020... What do you say? 

 

T. L. Cooper is an author and poet whose work aims to empower and inspire through an exploration of the human condition. Her poems, short stories, articles, and essays have appeared online, in books, and in magazines. Her published books include a collection of short stories, Soaring Betrayal, her Silhouette Poetry Series, and a novel, All She Ever Wanted. She grew up on a farm in Tollesboro, Kentucky. She currently lives in Albany, Oregon with her husband and three cats.

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