Year in Review: What Even Was That Year? Edition

 Hi team,

I meant to use this time to write this year's Movie Round-Up post, but then I realized that I've gotten into a somewhat consistent routine of writing posts to summarize the recently-closed (or about-to-be-closed) year.  I'm going to take a crack at that instead.

To write such a post for 2020 piqued my interest as a unique challenge, given the year's lack of usual mile markers.  In past years, I've noted vacations, marriages, births and adoptions, graduations, trips to museums, and participation in demonstrations, all of which didn't really happen in my life in the last year.  The major events that did occur in the lives of people I love happened from afar, which is not to diminish the very important fact that some of those things did happen--despite the oppressive drear of 2020, pivotal moments like engagements, births, home purchases, moves, and marriages still took place.  Seemingly impossibly, everyone's lives did not actually come to a complete, screeching halt in that most arduous and trying of years.

As I have in other years, I used the pictures I've taken throughout 2020 to guide my recollections.  Unlike in previous years, there is a striking consistency in the contents of my photos from the last 12 months: they almost exclusively center my child, documenting tiny yet personally profound changes in their appearance, abilities, and interactions with the world around them.  This emphasizes just how much this year has revolved around him, to my joy and honestly to my salvation, when so much else about the world could have easily induced nothing but despair.

And then, in more closely reviewing my documentation of the year, a more complex picture emerges: We started the year with a seemingly endless parade of visits from family and friends who traveled from all over the country to meet our child and to offer their love and help as Husband and I were still negotiating the transition into parenthood.  At the time, I appreciated how precious the opportunity was to introduce our child to the people we love while he was still so little.  Of course, I couldn't have possibly fully appreciated just how precious and heartbreakingly fleeting that window of time ultimately was--I thought we just needed to do our best to exploit the relative freedom of my maternity leave.  When the world shut down two weeks into my return to work, it became clear that circumstances reaching far beyond the considerations of our little corner of the world were going to determine just how long we'd have to wait to present our child to the world again.

Those first few months were utterly crushing.  The isolation, uncertainty, surreality, fear, and deep sense of longing for our loved ones seemed intolerable.  I felt so grateful that, if I had to do my best to survive a plague pent up in my house, I got to do it with Husband, our child, and our small herd of creatures.  Focusing on our child and the small details of our home-become-bunker offered some comfort through an intensive, naturally-occurring mindfulness boot camp I on some level knew I wanted, although certainly not on those dire terms.  Later, talking small forays into our surrounding community on walks and drives mercifully broadened our initially tiny perimeter.

But at heart, human beings are pack animals.  We inherently, desperately need each other to be well and whole.  In late March, I started writing and posting daily conversation-starter questions in an attempt to cut through the bleakness of most social media content and still connect, even if just to hear people's opinions on fonts, foods, and John Mayer.

Then, in the summer, a reprieve: we figured out how to pull off a visit from a family member in above-and-beyond consultation with all the (admittedly confusing and at times lackluster) governmental guidance on how to do such a thing.  That was a critical turning point.  Since that first visit, several have followed--often with long tracts between them, often with a lot of stress, negotiation, and excruciatingly careful planning to make them possible, sometimes with last-minute delays or cancelations--all desperately needed and welcomed when they came to fruition.  

All things considered, we've seen more of our loved ones than seemed even remotely possible in the early days of the pandemic.  I so often have compared what has been possible in the last year with what would have been if things were different, and the grief I feel at all those lost moments of togetherness is overwhelming.  Looking at the year in photos is helpful--in retrospect, the year doesn't seem quite as empty and alone as it so often felt.

In recent posts, I've noted that it feels wholly indecent to give 2020 credit for anything good.  I still say a bitter good riddance to such a pain and suffering-filled year.  But it would be dishonest of me if I didn't acknowledge that I suspect, in the future, there will be an aspect of this year that I'll miss: the single-minded focus on now, on my family, and on all the people I love, on drinking in every precious moment we get together and intentionally, ruthlessly moving heaven and earth to make those moments possible.  When the world comes back, it simply will be harder to achieve that anymore.  I hope we all still can.

{Heart}