New Year’s Eve Reflections
Although the year 2020 has become almost synonymous with coronavirus, at this time last year — if you were living in America, at least — the word had barely even entered the lexicon. How much can change in a year, and how much can stay the same.
If anything, I think the COVID-versary — the day on which you, personally, realized “uh oh, this is actually going to make an impact on my life” — will be more important for most people than the new year, which can’t be marked with a gathering, much less with a healthy smack on the lips from a stranger. The year has passed in a dreamy, quarantined haze, which means that it doesn’t feel like it has passed at all.
Still, we will celebrate the new year, if only to ring in the arrival of a clean slate. The general consensus, I’ve gathered, is that we’re all aware that 2021 is still going to suck, but it’s going to suck marginally less than 2020. “We can only go up from here” is the cheerful mantra of this new year.
I don’t think, though, that anyone should or can expect any semblance of pre-pandemic times to reappear. COVID-19 has made its mark on the world. It has changed a lot. Permanently. Either we find it in our hearts to embrace those changes — some of them might even be positive — or we suffer even more as they become more deeply embedded in the fabric of our daily lives.
This is not to say that we shouldn’t look forward to 2021 and celebrate its arrival (responsibly). Of course we should. Of course we should look forward with optimism and vow to do all we can to reach that better future we see so distantly on the horizon. What we can’t forget, though, is how we got here in the first place, what we have been taught by this situation, and how carefully we must proceed to prevent future disasters on the same scale (yes, I am referring to climate change. No one is surprised.)
Last year, I wrote a piece about the endings of units of time that was ostensibly about the turn of the decade. I was hopeful for 2020, and even though that particular hope has remained unfulfilled, I am even more hopeful for 2021. I’ll leave you with words from past Sarah, young and innocent as she was. Despite all that has happened, I still think they ring true.
I think if anything shows the optimistic spirit of humans, it is that we call the end of the year “New Year’s Eve”. We are caught up in the forward march of time, and so we look forward with hope. The end of the year is the time to begin focusing on the next. We make lofty New Year’s Resolutions — to work harder, to have more fun, to lose that pesky belly fat. We turn our faces toward the sunset, and see not the night, but the dawn of a new day. The end of the year is beautiful, because we make it beautiful.
