I have been trying to write a blog post about what the approaching end of the year means for me, emotionally and physically. It's so hard, because the year has just been a pile of crap, but so many people around the world have suffered worse. So, who am I to complain?
I can't even touch on survivor's guilt at this point because, despite the vaccine out there, this isn't over.
For the better part of nine months life has been suspended and we simply exist in this held breath of anticipation -- of either a cure or death. How do we reconcile all of that, psychologically? How do we handle being here while so many of our loved ones aren't? More than one in every thousand people in the United States have succumbed to Covid. That number blows my mind.
On top of all of that, people have been forced to work in environments that are pretty unsafe and dealt with all of the other 'normal' stuff in any given year. People have loved, lost, watched their homes burn, been buried in debt, buried their pets, been taken for granted and abused -- only in larger numbers. It's a consequence of psychological stress that crimes and other abuses have increased pretty drastically.
2020 is going to go down in history as the year that wasn't -- and that is the way it should be.
I have heard it from many people that they were surprised to learn about the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918-20. History has largely forgotten about it. Why? The answer is because no one WANTED to remember it after that terrible period was over. It was traumatic for the survivors and nobody wanted to dwell on it after it was over.
2020 should simply receive an asterisk in history with a footnote that reads, "It was the year without hope. That is all." We should bury this year like we have buried so many others during it. It's possible to use it as an example to be better prepared in the future for another pandemic but also brush it aside and look to the future. Honestly, it's the only way we are going to psychologically survive as individuals after going through so much.
After the vaccination threshold for herd immunity is reached, people are going to be flooding beaches, having gatherings, and trying to feel normal again Yet, there is going to be a stigma to doing such -- a guilt that comes from how 2020 has changed us. It shouldn't. We lived. Mourn our dead and then let their memory become immortal upon the pyre of time, but don't torment yourselves for still being here.
So, as 2020 goes out with a frustrated exhale of mental fatigue, let's allow it to be what it was without mentally caging us within it for the rest of our lives.
2021 is going to be rocky for sure but, unlike 2020, it will be a year filled with hope. You are going to be okay, and that is alright. Don't let your mind come back to this year, again. It's over. It's finally over.
