Mixed emotions – 2020

Posted on December 31, 2020 by Beth Markel

For many of us, myself included, 2020 has been a year of challenges, profound change, loneliness, and remarkable social upheaval. When the year began, who among us could have predicted the roller-coaster that 2020 will now most surely be labelled?

Many of us makers spent hours and hours making masks.

Many of us spent days and days in our homes alone or with our nuclear families, and some days we got on each other’s nerves.

Groceries were delivered.

We took our temperatures hourly if we started to feel like we might be getting sick.

We learned to binge-watch series and thought it was our new hobby.

We got frustrated as we had birthdays, holidays, and family gatherings via zoom.

We learned to work from home.

But, we also had new opportunities: we were able to spend time with our families when we realized, for a while, we had just been passing each other in the hallway. We played games together. We laughed more when we were together – sometimes at the absurdity of it all. We got to know each other again.

We cooked together. We baked together. We discovered new things about each other. We tried new dishes, new recipes, new desserts.

We realized how precious hugs really are.

We realized how fragile life can be…and how resilient we can be.

Some of us were blessed with new grandbabies.

I began to look for beauty in the small things, and enjoying everyday events, like coffee with my husband on our back patio, the arrival of hummingbirds and orioles, the summer sun on our faces, and eventually watching the leaves turn color and begin to drop.

Yes, it’s been a challenging year, and yes, there may be more to come, but join me in looking for the beautiful, the possible, and the unlikely joy.

To that end, I even began to see my trash as interesting… it might be time to get outside!

Happy New Year!

Beth