It has been a while since I have put fingers to the keys, which is surprising for someone who loves to write. I tried several times, but every time I did so, the heaviness of the world seem to hold me back. As I attempted to put the “positive on paper”, I found myself reaching for just the right thing to say, in a world that has made it more difficult to express how you feel without offending someone. As I thought about it more, I began to realize that expressing yourself is part of who you are. You may not always say the right thing, in the right way. However, if you are true to yourself and your beliefs, while respecting that others may have a differing view, then that is the best that you can do.

For most of us, 2020 seems to be a year where we are living in some alternate reality. We have struggled to find our new normal while attempting to have pieces of our life go on in ways that made us comfortable and secure. Dining out has been replaced with dining in. Going to movies has been replaced with watching them on television. Going to church has been replaced with watching live streams. Traveling has been replaced with perusing through old photos and taking “memory trips”. While we all know that the situation is temporary, experiencing it in real time has been quite an adjustment for those who have been following the rules and doing what we are supposed to do to keep ourselves and our families safe.

My hope was that this experience would be that which made us all closer and kinder. In a way it has. We have found ways to reconnect with those of our past as well as those in our present, in ways that we would have never imagined. Seeing someone we have been missing on a Zoom call fills the void that we felt when they were removed from our lives. Parking lot social distance tailgating and visits across the lawn have helped us feel that sense of normalcy that we all seem to crave.

For all the unpleasantness that 2020 has brought, there have been good things that have come out of it as well. We have spent less, cared more and found our creative side that had been replaced by technology. We are once again learning to actually have a conversation with each other, sit together at the dinner table and rekindle our relationships that may have gotten stagnant. We have found a way to keep a sense of hope and optimism in a world that has made it harder to do so. Many have even embarked on a journey of self discovery that is very likely to change the person we were into the person that we always wanted to be.

On December 31st, the clock will strike twelve, and a new year will usher in. As we continue to deal with that which is around us, much of what we experienced in 2020 will carry into the new year for a period of time. However, if we muster the compassion and willingness to do what is right for the population as a whole rather than we as an individual, we will come out the other side a better person, a better society and a better world.