A Positive (enough) Wrap Up of 2020
It’s been a bad year, that’s a given. It’s been a bad year. Last year, I reflected on the difficult year that 2019 was and wrote about all of the good news we overlooked; this year I worried that, in writing this article it would be revealed that there was no overlooked good news or good news period. A pandemic which has taken the lives of far too many, tragic wildfires, climate change only worsening, troubling provincial politics, a chaotic election south of the border, wars, genocide, racism, transphobia, homophobia, oppression, the unfortunate list goes on and on. Normally, I’d make a snarky joke here about how Grimes and Elon Musk named their baby X Æ A-Xii 12 this year, but I can’t bring myself to do it (even though I kind of just did). After fretting over how to write this article, how to push a little bit more positivity into this rather negative holiday season, I decided that listing 21 good things that happened is probably not going to do that.
21 pieces of arbitrary good news is a distraction maybe, but I think we’ve spent (at least I have spent) the entire pandemic trying to distract myself with better news and it’s done virtually nothing. Rather than writing something to distract, I want to write something that will make you feel better (which I know sounds impossible, but let me try).
Let me start by saying that I’m so proud of you because you’ve made it through this year. So, congratulations! And isn’t that great news? You can officially say that you’ve lived through 2020, likely the hardest year in the 21st century, and hopefully the hardest that we’ll have to live through. This year has been a growing experience to say the least; it taught us to be kind to everyone (including ourselves); showed us who to love and who to leave; and, at risk of coming off cliche, united people in a way I didn’t think was possible. Basically, what I’m trying to say is that we may not have had a lot of good news this year, but isn’t the best news of all that we made it through. The person you are now would not have existed if not for overcoming collective hardship, and I think that’s beautiful. I’m not saying that 2021 is going to be miraculously better, if anything 2020 might have just been the foreshadowing for what’s to come, but if we got through it once I have no doubt we can do it again. Not to mention if at least some good has come out of this year (what with learning who your true friends are, learning to take time for yourself, caring for one another) we can only hope that we can take that forward into what’s coming in 2021.
I hope you take care of yourself this winter break, call the people you love, eat a whole bunch of junk food and whatever else you do (safely) during the holidays. From me and all of us at The Victoria Voice: Happy Holidays!
