Last time Thursday Thoughts were due, the schedule presented me with the gift of Thanksgiving Day. And now they are due again and here it is New Year’s Eve. The Universe is decidedly on my side with how this rotating-day-but-still-weekly schedule is unfolding.
Here are some thing that I am thinking about as we wrap up a ballbuster of a year and head in to a new one…carrying some pretty heavy baggage.
I’m going to get the big one out of the way and tackle it head on. All that “I can’t wait for 2020 to be over” is a big load of crap. I’m thinking it’ll be more like 2021.5. If we’re lucky. Maybe those annoying kids who insisted on having their half birthdays recognized and celebrated were on to something.
Am I the only one who thinks that the ball they drop in Times Square this year should be a giant Waterford crystal replica of The COVID…and that they should have some sort of malfunction so it hits the ground and shatters everywhere (but injuring no one)? I mean, they look so much alike anyway so WTF not?
This pandemic has gone on so long (with no end in sight) that I have a few colleagues who very well could have had triple-top secret babies. Fortunately word leaked out so I could at least send some congratulatory wishes. (I guess because of lockdown there’s no need to send “bad” girls to the convent anymore.)
I learned this on Christmas Eve, midday, when preparations took over any degree of common sense: when someone suggests you have a bowl of Cheerios, it’s really not a suggestion. Eat the Cheerios; you’re hangry.
I was reading a piece in the Globe on Tuesday in which some Bostonians report on the songs or albums that got them through 2020. (You know my Quarantine Playlist (still growing) got me through mine.) One of them noted that Yola’s version of Yellow Brick Road is better than Sir Elton’s (gasp!) and that she was willing to debate anyone on that point. So I ran to Spotify and…was…blown…away.
I’m not a parent but I have nephews (2) and nieces (3). When they were little, there was nothing like Christmas with kids. What I realized this year is that Christmas with kidults is jus as fun, in a totally different way. The oldest (22) was giving me a pep talk about writing. “You have to be disciplined. You have to set your alarm for like 9 or 9:30 every day.” (Uh, I work every day at 8:30. Ahhh… to be 22 again.) We gave the 21-year old a Bachans BBQ sauce/tshirt gift pack. I said, “Don’t forget that,” as things were getting packed up. “You know, that was such a good gift I think you should re-wrap it and give it to me again tomorrow.” So, I did, and it was opened with the joy and wonder of a little kid gifted by Santa’s—so fun and funny. And the 19-year-old had to leave early to go to work. When COVID slammed the door on a normal sophomore year of college, another door opened and was sprinted through—to the operating room at Children’s Hospital and a 4-nights-a-week position as an OR assistant. So yeah, the kidults make Christmas fun still…and make me happy and proud in so many ways. (The other two (16 and 14) live in MI, so no visit with them this year.)
Soma Cool Nights pajamas are no joke for women of a certain age.
The whole Hilaria Baldwin fake accent story is pretty hilarias.
What’s not funny at all is that this week there there was a shooting in a bowling alley in IL (3 killed) and a police shooting in OH (Andre Hill) and it’s barely made a blip. We’re immune to gun violence but not COVID and something seems out of whack with that.
Two things I’d be happy to see go at the end of 2020 are “Boomer” and “Karen.” Generalization and caricature will get us no place. (Thanks mom and dad for not naming me Karen. Who would have guessed?)
The Patriots’ season was abysmal.
According to Waze my car really didn’t move much during the pandemic. At all. Especially when you consider that we had roughly 75 unrestricted days at the beginning of the year. In any case I drove on fewer than half of the days in this upside down, inside out, and backwards year, averaging fewer than 10 miles per trip. But for some reason I don’t feel like I was trapped or constricted in any way, so there’s that. And come to think about it I well mat have walked more than I drove this year. Which is nuts.
Many of you know that I’m not a fan of looking in the rearview mirror because it gives you a bitch of a stiff neck and prevents me from seeing what’s all around me. So as we close one chapter and open another, I’m looking ahead to the fresh sheet of paper and the hope of having 525,600 minutes to fill the page.
Before I sign off I’m going to leave you with two songs that for me kind of sum up a lot of what I’m experiencing and feeling in the context of where we’re at right now. The first is Untitled #4 by Avett Brothers, and while every lyric of the song isn’t something I’ve experienced the sentiment of the song sounded the bell of my soul. Find yourself and your place and be happy with that; be happy with nothing. As I’ve noted before, in some cases, nothing is in fact everything.
The second is Good Old Days by Macklemore featuring Kesha. Enjoy the moment…just because you have the moment. That’s reason enough.
Never thought we'd get old, maybe we're still young
Maybe we always look back and think it was better than it was
Maybe these are the moments
Maybe I've been missing what it's about
Been scared of the future, thinking about the past
While missing out on now
We've come so far, I guess I'm proud
And I ain't worried about the wrinkles around my smile
I've got some scars, I've been around
I've felt some pain, I've seen some things, but I'm here now.
This year was unexpected in so many ways. But the slowdown and the stillness and the quiet gave me a gift I didn’t know I wanted, the chance to recalibrate my mind and my soul.
*Happy* new year. Emphasis very decidedly on “happy.”
P.S. I read this article the other day and shortly thereafter went for a walk when I heard this song (I know—country!), but it did give me a chance to reflect on where the world has been and where it is now. I think we have so much more control over our experience than we realize. And no, we’re never going back to the 1950s…and no we don’t need to live in black and white…but maybe we can slow down, sit on the porch, and take the time we need to live fully. I can’t turn back time and go back to the 50s, but I can go back to Mayberry—it’s a state of mind. The world has always spun at the same speed…but I can slow down how fast I am spinning on it. So in 2021 I’ll endeavor to spin slower and to take it all it, whatever it is. And I hope our paths cross, and we can toast to life and sing and dance and laugh and drink together.