We’re almost there!!
With Out Of Office notifications now activated, menorahs being carefully packed away, wrapping paper being collected from the base of Christmas trees, another round of turkey sandwiches being prepared from feasty left-overs, and playful off-line pauses being enjoyed before countdowns begin towards New Year’s Eve, a new excitement is building – a feisty one.
The close of 2020 is soooo close!
The sleep-count is shrinking. A new wave is growing, one reaching millions across the globe. It’s not the latest COVID-19 wave, though sadly that too is also moving swiftly, widely, mercilessly once more, putting strain on global healthcare systems and frontliners – new strains starting to emerge and travel.
This particular wave is spreading through a hashtag: #FU2020. Quickly, with variations of cursing. The hashtag is sharing millions upon millions of reasons to raise a fist to the sky, and a glass at midnight on 31 12 2020, for all 2020 has been for us all. The editing filter has been dropped.
First articulation of frustration and fiery sentiment started to appear as our calendars reached the Winter Solstice of 2020: “The shortest day of the longest ____ year of our lives”, one posting read. There was something almost permission-granting about the overt admission of just how long, hard, and hope-challenging 2020 has been.
Growing momentum of growling is impossible to ignore. Humorous messages and memes capture all that has been missed out on this year, all across the world, the agnostic, aching nature of this unnatural year out there for all to see.
The bubbling anger, angst and anxiousness for 2020 to be ‘done’ is so very real, so raw. In the final seconds of 2020 countdown there will be, no doubt, swearing accompanying singing – laughter a needed release after long months needing to stay strong, stay hopeful, hold on. Sparks of the confidence and courage reignited to take us into 2021.
But please, please just stop – please don’t just rush into 2021.
Not just yet…not until the tears have been allowed to fall.
As tempting as it is to write off 2020, we can’t – our hearts might not be ready.
Midnight will come, and we will hopefully be together with loves ones – those we can within the rules and regulations. But before that moment happens, before looking forward, please just wait a moment.
Be alone.
Be still.
Be brave.
Look back…
Allow your heart to breathe, to feel the year now closing. To cry.
2020 has been redefining, rewiring, really, really hard. For everyone.
There is no competition: everyone has suffered, everyone is grieving in some way.
Loved ones, loved moments, livelihoods, chances of a lifetime,
Gone.
No one has escaped 2020 unscathed:
Children or grown-ups,
Friends or foes,
Near or far,
No one.
Which is why before we raise our glasses to 2021 we need to let the 2020 tears fall.
Healthy tears – quiet, thoughtful, cleansing, healing tears.
Tears from as far back as the first months of 2020 when shock first hit, when we knew something was scary-wrong, when doors and borders and businesses and skies and hearts started to close.
Tears marking the changing of the seasons, all other signs of time passing feeling a blur.
Tears tightly holding in the emotions felt when bad news hit, and then hit again, and then hit again.
Tears of simply being tired, tired of the uncertainty, tired of the endlessness, tired of being tired.
The wounds of 2020 are deep, the scars will take decades to erase, if ever.
But the healing must start. Now. As our minds register the milestone of the close of 2020.
Now is a time for healing.
In time, at some point in time, our storytelling will select memories of this time, sifting through the hurt and heartache to find ways of creating a hopeful, helpful narrative. That time will come.
But for now, right here and right now is what matters.
May the gift you give yourself in the final hours of 2020 be the chance to allow those waiting-patiently tears to rise, be released, and quietly run down your cheek in a way that releases your heart of all of the holding-on that has been so needed each day of this year.
Whatever is ahead in 2021, 2020 will soon be done.
We’re almost there.
Make a wish….x
Copyright: ANITA MENDIRATTA 2020