I mean, yes, I can pretty well guess what most of you are thinking as you read this. Of course you’ll remember the pandemic and all that came with it--virtual learning, homeschooling, working from home, the toilet paper shortage, lockdowns, masks, missing friends, missing your favorite restaurants, reconfigured holiday gatherings, Zoom, Zoom, and more Zoom. Our country’s racial reckoning and the 2020 national election top our memories no doubt, too.
Perhaps you’ll also remember getting creative with {safely} seeing your neighbors, backyard sprinkler runs, fireside chats, socially distanced parking lot meet ups, getting a new pet. Or perhaps you’d rather forget 2020 and pretend it never happened. [Though even in our wildest dreams, of course, even if we completely forget 2020, our lives forever after will be profoundly different.]
As we mark this final December day off the calendar, our hearts might flutter a bit at getting closer to trashing the entire calendar of 2020, ready to put 2021 up on the wall, full of a hopeful moxie that everything will turn around, that it can’t possibly be a year as disastrous as the one we are currently in. While some of us may have leaned into some of the softer sides of 2020--living at a slower pace, choosing activities with intentionality, feeling less rushed to get everyone to their respective art class or sports practice, spending more time with loved ones because they are just a video call away--even with those softer sides, it’s clear that the majority of us have been looking for a way out of this year before it dares plunge us any deeper into the upside down.
I love the new year. New Year’s Eve has become an evening I look forward to with a sense of renewal, reflection, and promise. NYE is cozy in our world--nothing glittery or showy for it. Snacks and movies, watching our favorite episode of a beloved TV show, choosing a countdown to watch, Christmas lights shining in the background. Sometimes I am still awake at midnight, other times not. No matter how we ring it in, it remains that constant, that time of reflecting on what was and what will be.
It would be easy to look at 2020 as a weird sort of mistake; as a year not worth celebrating as it comes to an end. The year when many of us felt completely sunk in the gender gap. The year when parenting, teaching, and working all collided making us feel completely inadequate in every sector. Many of us have simply turned to surviving this year; we can’t even think about thriving.
But what if we didn’t discount 2020? What if our New Year’s Eve celebrations and reflections still held space for this year as a year to be documented and remembered and one that has no doubt shaped the world we are making for our children? What if we didn’t see this as the terrible, no good, very bad year that was but instead saw it as a year worth learning from? I am not asking you to lean into toxic positivity or dismiss the raw feelings that have simmered over the past nine months. I am asking that even in the midst of the overwhelm and the great uncovering of our unsustainable obsession with productivity here in the Western world, that you take these last few weeks of the year to pause. To reflect. To lean into the joys and the learnings and the moments of 2020 that simply took your breath away.
Here are some reflections stems to get you started. Maybe jot them down or simply pull one or two out to think about. Write your responses in a Google doc or journal. Read through them together as a family on New Year’s Eve. Or simply reflect. Whatever works best for you.
In 2020…
What are you most proud of?
What did you learn about your children?
What did you learn about yourself?
What memory makes you belly laugh?
What memory makes you hopeful for the new year?
[Scroll through the pictures on your phone]: Choose a photo from this year and tell your family and friends a story about what that photo represents to you about 2020.
In what specific ways did you succeed?
In what specific ways did you persevere?
What have your children taught you?
What new foods did you discover?
What new talents did you discover?
What new games did you start playing?
What new traditions began?
What will you miss?
What will you celebrate?
What project did you complete?
What project did you start?
When did you get creative with turning disappointment into joy?
When did you want to give up….but didn’t?
When did you give yourself a break?
So I ask again, what will you remember about 2020?
Let it be said of us that even in the midst of the tumult of our time that we were able to stretch without breaking; and for those of us that feel broken, that even in our brokenness that we can find purpose and light. No, this year was not easy. No, 2021 will not be a magic fix. But perhaps we can lean into the lessons of a difficult year and capture some of the moments that kept it from completely shattering.
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