I didn’t anticipate posting this, because we usually try to keep things as positive as possible on this space because we know some of you read this blog as a form of escape. However, it’d be odd not to acknowledge how hard the last two years have been for all of us. Personally speaking, 2021 has had some very joyous moments but has had some very, very hard ones. Some of you can probably even name some of them yourself.
I read a tweet the other day that I wish I could find that talked about how they hope for softness this month. Reading that and thinking about a conversation I had with my mom recently made me think of just how much this year has hardened all of us.
How much grief and fear have shifted my way of thinking and being.
How different our view of the world is now.
How different our view is of people and humanity as a whole.
How much of this year a lot of us were in a state of “hanging in there.” Each month I’d fall into a repetitive cycle of hope, then discouragement, then hope and discouragement…wash, rinse, and repeat. We were just taking things moment by moment and month by month, carried by faith and hope through previous disappointments.
Every year when we approach a new month, we find ourselves anchored in hope that the present month will be better than the last. It’s one of the reasons why tweets sharing their hopes for the new months ahead always have such good engagement. We’re all hoping for something and for many of us, this year has left seemingly irreparable damage on our hearts. We emerge from our grief, different people than we were before it.
Has this year hardened you?
Have aspects of this year burned you, leaving the charred remains of the naivety you once had when we were approaching 2021?
I hope you have an opportunity to grieve that. As we shared in last year’s post around this time, we’re all grieving. Some of us are grieving the loss of life and others are grieving the loss of the world they thought they knew or of family members who they’ve had to distance themselves from due to big ideological differences. We’ve all changed and so have our habits and have had to shift a lot of things around. We’ve all had to adjust.
That being said, I hope that you have hope anyway.
I hope that as you peek into the last several days of 2021 and look into 2022 that you feel more hopeful than you have before. I hope that despite the year you’ve had, you can feel yourself brimming with the hope of good things to come because good things will come.
It sounds cheesy, but I often imagine that the rest of 2021 and going forward will be better. Although there has been grief, there’s still a sense of hope – although the size of a mustard seed sometimes – that exists and keeps us going.
I picture and believe that 2022 will be greater than 2021 and will be full of redemption, joy, miracles, and happy memories. I imagine that it’ll far surpass what we’ve hoped and will be the start of many, many more joyful years to come because of the tears we’ve sown.
A lot can happen in the next several days.
Merry Christmas and Happy (Almost) New Year!
