It is March whatever of the sixth year of 2020 and I am so done with it. It’s like every time we think we’ve reached a comfortable state to wait out the current insanity, a new crazier stage begins and we have to start figuring things out all over again.
Each time we start with just a little less willpower and strength. It’s like when something keeps breaking down and you keep adding layers of glue and duct tape, thinking it just needs to hold out long enough to make it to the repair shop.
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But fate just keeps pushing that appointment out farther.
Eventually, you’re going to run out of duct tape and the next crack will be the last you can handle.
The thing is, it’s not just me. It’s not just you.
The whole damn world is crumbling right now and we’re all just trying to jerry-rig things to hold together long enough for things to settle down again.
I was 16 when 9/11 happened and I naively thought that would be the dramatic event of my lifetime.
I’m an adult now, and I understand how misguided that was. Sure, that was a much swifter, earthshaking sort of drama. It caused changes to the world, but no necessarily to me directly. Meanwhile the long, slow dread of 2020 will stick will stick to me like a bad smell.
It will stick to all of us.
2020 will change us.
For some of us, it may even change us for the good. People often talk about how we have to hit rock bottom before we can make truly positive changes in our lives.
This year is pounding us into the bedrock and if we can just keep pushing forward then maybe we’ll come out the other side stronger, wiser, and more resilient than we could ever have dreamed before.
It’s so hard to find anything to hope for in 2020’s rolling wave of suck, but maybe that’s enough.
Maybe knowing that surviving what it throws at us will make us stronger is enough to keep us taking those small steps toward the future.
Maybe it will help us get out of bed each morning, do what we can, and keep on moving forward.
