It’s not New Year’s Eve but we’re approaching a monumental revolution around the sun... to a pretty big milestone. A year marker from the day we were sent inside for what would end up being more than just a two week stay.
It’s been a year since we were sent scrambling for toilet paper and handiwipes. A year since we were made to pivot our jobs and families and school and relationships.
We were thrust, without choice, into a season where we were forced to look at how we functioned, how we showed up in the world, and how we related to each other. And we adapted. To all of it.
I remember what I was doing the day the Twin Towers were hit and fell on September 11, 2001. I remember exactly what I was wearing and who I was with when I got the call that my father had died. And I think I will always remember what I was doing on March 13, 2020 the day before we were sent inside.
Milestones and anniversaries are markers to the big memories and moments in our lives. And we just keep stringing all the high, low, and meh markers along the way, to create one full life.
What a long strange trip it's been. My mind really can't wrap around the global impact of the last 365 days. A lot of learning, adapting, struggling, exploring, adventures, failures, and creations. I hope I'm alive to hear how history tells this story in hindsight.
Many of us may see this anniversary through a lens of grief. I know we all feel so much has been lost in all of the changes we have had to make.
But I believe, just as in grieving, two things can happen:
we realize the things we appreciate in life, and
we continue to create life around the things we've lost.
And we still have the power to create life beautifully with what we have.
So we find ourselves at a milestone. Mark it. Put a flag in it. Here we are. Acknowledge it.
Grieve it, if you must. Honor it.
Just like a New Year’s Eve, we can now look back to see how far we have come, or really how far we have to go. And decide how we want to keep traveling ahead.
yhbg
Such a hopeful, helpful, honest post, Melissa. This past year HAS affected all of us in so many different ways. We need to mark the anniversary. And remember all we have experienced and learned.
Good things. So many good things.
I can vividly remember March 13, when I reported to my supervisors that one of my students had been exposed and asked what I should do about it. I was told that my students would be fine and to carry on. I told them I wasn't as concerned about them as I was about the senior citizen (ie. me) in the room.
The next day, life was cancelled. I think that's when we all finally realized that this truly was…