gratitude-a-thon day 2022: buh-bye 2020

Happy new year! I thought 2020 might refuse to concede to 2021. (I stole this from an unknown source, but, right?!). What a calamity. What a dumpster fire married to an active volcano. What a, as Dana Bash on live tv, called the first presidential debate, “shit show.”

I spent a lot of 2020 trying to normalize the unnormalizeable. Didn’t we all? Didn’t we all try and make sense of what was happening, from the behavior of our mentally ill, ultra incompetent, extremely divisive president to the Black Lives Matter movement, to the political season that seemed to encompass several hundred years, to living with a lethal virus running rampant and changing the fabric of the world, while killing more than 320,000 people in this country, alone.

There will be some moments I will remember fondly, once I have enough distance from the offspring of the devil and Mitch McConnell, that was this year. And I bet you will, too. Until then I will keep masking up, staying hopeful, continuing to focus on the all encompassing joy and elation that have engulfed me since election day. I will work even harder at finding the smallest, gnat-sized good things. I will focus more on what I have and less on what I don’t. I will try to be kinder. I will make an effort to use my phone less and move my body more. I will ponder what I’m grateful for every single day. I will make sure that those i love know it. I will consider officially adopting my Elf cutout so that he can come to all holiday celebrations and not just Christmas. I will work hard at making 2021 the year we laughed more. And I will, finally, turn off the news.

So, bring it, 2021. We’ll do our best with you. But, go easy on us, we’ve been through a lot and we need a kinder, gentler place to live right now. And here we go.