Wait, let me set the scene first: Lockdown 4. I am at home and stunned to hear my name. After looking around (there is no one else in the living room except my partner), I mouth “Oh my god,” then kiss him. I stand up from the couch. I am wearing Yoga pants (hot), a tank top (hot) while I make up my way to the TV, waving and air-kissing an imaginary crowd of people. Javier Bardem is handing me an imaginary award, kisses me on the mouth cheeks. I look at the award, inhale deeply and start my speech.
“I cannot believe it. Oh my god. This is too…… I mean, who could have believed that I would stand in front of you all. Wow. Okay. People, this year, I went on five hikes and Mountainbike tours aka waddled my melodramatic self over some autumnal leaves. OMG! Can’t believe I forgot! I ran a 5K! I would like to thank the training app I used to accomplish this feat. Alright, fine. It wasn’t an official 5K that raised money or included other runners. I just ran three kilometer, in poor form, through the village. I realised halfway through the run that I forgot to bring my phone, which meant there was no record so I could show of what I did. So I just ran….. for my health?
Thank you to my parents. You are both in your sixties yet look as good as, if not better than, me. Thanks for giving me hope that I will age as well as you despite the fact that you walk many kilometers every day (I stand and sit a lot at work), don’t drink that much (I love my wine), don’t stay up late (one A.M. is a reasonable time for me to go to bed), and generally have calm demeanours (a game of Monopoly with my son has me looking like a U.S. president leaving the White House after two terms).
To my partner. You put up with a lot, namely me forcing you to build things for me, being the Guinea pig for every (new) dish I create, or watching music videos on YouTube for hours. There are so many other things but the list would be too long to type now. There is no one else I would rather do all this with. Thank you. I love you.
In all seriousness, while not everyone has a speech prepared, many of us did anticipate that 2021 was going to kick off the decade in spectacular or at least better than 2020. What is going on these days (demonstrations etc.) are 100 percent valid reactions to the new world we are navigating. We have the right to feel confused and angry. To lose faith and question whether we should have had it in the first place. For many, those fun butterflies in our stomachs have been replaced by, well, sheer panic, and that overwhelming sense of losing control – be it of our jobs, our daily routines, our finances, our health, or simply how we can spend our time is paralysing. Not that we ever had that much control in the first place, but we told ourselves what we had to in order to function. So we made plans. Set goals. Did all the things one does when constructing a life, like loving, hoping, fighting, thinking about tomorrow, etc. All this to just realize that we are vulnerable in the face of the unknown, and that is hard enough in this new coronavirus-normal.
So why am I writing all this? The best I can offer a this moment is that I am a funny person, and if I can make you laugh and forget your problems for a moment then I did something. I am living in this crazy time too and it is probable that my way of looking at life could be of use to someone who just needs to laugh. I crave humour because I don’t want this lockdown to rewire my brain or convince me to lose all sense of optimism. Because in the face of it looking like we are all fucked, giving up would be letting down those in my family and friends who haven’t. So I won’t give up today. And I will try not to tomorrow.
My hope is this: When I look back on 2020 and 2021, and I need to punch, yell, kick, scream from the dreams deferred, I will do it. If, when I am feeling low, I recall seeing myself on the other side of this even though I had no idea how I was going to get here, I will live in that memory for as long as it takes for it to help propel myself forward.
If stripping away all the luxuries and circumstantial nonsense put you on the path to start appreciating what truly matters, stay on that path, too, because it will lead you to a more enriching life. Fuck the rules of waiting for the first day of 2022 or for the stars to align perfectly according to our horoscope or for the numbers to add up. Truthfully, there is no “right” year or moment. We know this now. Actually, we have been knowing this. All that we have, in many ways, it the knowledge that we don’t know how much time we have left in our lives. So let’s keep rolling up our sleeves and continue writing and revising and enacting new plans on how we can make THIS the best life of our lives.
