On Entering 2021 as a New Year

Photo: Two kids sledding down a small hill in the snow Text: On Entering 2021 as a New Year
“Oh God, I can’t sing this,” I laughed, amazed at the off-key pitch I was attempting. But still, we continued. “Hark the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn king,” I warbled badly, along with my husband and two kids with nothing resembling harmony.
Yet it was still beautiful. In the past, I would have done it but been embarrassed or ashamed. I would have frowned and grumped. But despite my laughing at myself, I was smiling and proud. Proud that my kids loved singing with me despite my voice. Proud that my kids hadn’t yet found that shame. Proud that I’ve so far managed to teach them to take deep pleasure in these moments together. Proud that we could be together and still enjoy each other’s company.
I can’t say that I’ve learned much from this year.

As awful as it was, it isn’t the worst year I’ve had. (There are personally multiple years for me that were “worse” as well as one that was arguably more stressful.) Neither am I about to embrace toxic positivity. I am very privileged – none of us have jobs that require us to interact with people, none of us are medically vulnerable, and I have a steady job. For us, parts of this year were bad, parts of it were good, and a whole lot of it was just an increasing sense of exhaustion.
Instead of being eye-opening, what this year did for me was test all of the skills I’ve built up to deal with stress, both personal and global. I joked at the beginning of all of this that my worrying about and shifting my life to address climate change prepared me well for COVID. Yet that’s turned out to be incredibly true. (It’s also helped me deal with the anger over other people’s irresponsibility.) The other big touchpoint for me was drawing on the skills I developed in the six weeks after each of our kids were born. In that time when we weren’t supposed to have the babies near much of anyone and I was pretty much attached to them, I learned that every day, I need outdoors time, a shower, movement, and a rhythm (if not a specific schedule). Willy nilly “do whatever” days drive me into spiraling anxiety. Those guidelines have served me immensely well over the past nine months.
In addition, COVID has also shown my family about our ability to take care of ourselves and each other. As a result, burnout has approached and retreated; my husband and I were able to spot it in the distance and give each other the grace and rest we needed. Starting in June, we had the deep privilege to “pod” with my parents as well. They’ve been a tremendous help with the kids. I’ve learned to let go about my anxiety about receiving help, as long as it’s freely given. I even thanked my mom for wiping down part of the kitchen the other day instead of stewing about it being “wrong.”
There are a few things that I think my family may carry on past this year – our family movie Saturday mornings, allowing the kids to stay at my parents’ house more often – but we’ll be very happy to move on from this year. I hope that perhaps our country can learn from this in terms of tackling vast inequality, especially with race – I’m hopeful, but not optimistic.
So for everyone, I hope that your 2021 can be a time of restarts and an opportunity to begin differently. I hope if there’s anything you did get out of 2020, you can hold onto it tightly, but leave behind what you need to. I hope for as good of a New Year for you all as possible.

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