No Resolution
By: Mark Alden
Tags: Society, 2020, 2021, Covid 19, New Year

Whew! 2020 - what a tragic and harrowing year this has been. There hasn’t been one quite like it in the last hundred years and hopefully there won’t be another one for at least a hundred more. So much has happened in such a short frame of time, so much we failed to see coming when we toasted its arrival back in January. As I write this, 1.78 million people worldwide are no longer with us due to a virus most of us knew little, if anything about back at the start of the year. Now, we know it only too well. It all but consumes the news these days with some exasperating politics sprinkled in. If there was one thing we might have successfully predicted way back in January — had we known we were on the brink of a worldwide pandemic, that is — it would have been that, yes, even this, especially this, not to mention the entire community of scientists working day and night to beat it, would be highly politicized and criticized in 2020.

So… jumping ahead, long story short, here we are on the precipice of celebrating the start of another new year, and most of all, the end of this one. As a society we are significantly changed from the last time we did this. We put on our masks every time we go out now, every time we dare go out to be amongst other people. We do not think much about it. At this point, it almost seems like the most normal thing in the world, like putting on a hat or gloves or jacket. On New Year’s eve Times Square will be virtually empty this year without us, though that brightly lit ball will drop at the stroke of midnight just as it has every other year, and the party will still go on in dystopia.

We have all been touched in one way or another by this virus. Not a single continent on the planet — not even Antarctica now — has managed to elude it. We each try to put a brave face on, try to convince ourselves that it will not happen to us, try to convince ourselves that with the two new vaccines now being administered that the worst is over, that 2021 will be about a return to normalcy, even though there is an annoying unrelenting voice in the back of our heads that is suggesting otherwise. It is saying we still have a long way to go. And we are afraid it is probably right.

On a personal level, — aside from the pandemic — this year has had its unique set of ups and downs, as they all do. At the least of them, I have crept another year closer to the half century mark which suddenly doesn’t seem like such a big deal anymore. In fact, until I just typed it, I don’t think I had given much thought to it at all. Other matters have taken precedent. I lost my mother back in September to a long and heartbreaking battle with dementia. Because of the necessary COVID-19 restrictions in nursing homes, my family and I were not able to spend any time with her in her final few months. We were allowed to peek in and see her through a plate glass window, but that was all. She never knew we were there.

It seems a little silly now when I think back to a year ago and my one and only 2020 New Year’s resolution. It was simply to resume journaling and stick with it this time. Surely, I could write at least a few words every day. Not such a daunting commitment. What could be simpler? Apparently, a lot of things. I kept that resolution for exactly one day. To my credit, I did come back to it, albeit after allowing a ridiculous amount of time to pass. As I leaf through that journal now, I look at my first entry back on January 1st which contained a short paragraph outlining a few small goals that I hoped to accomplish during the course of the year. Beneath was a rather poor first attempt at a newspaper blackout poem which I had been inspired to try after reading a book of the same title by Austin Kleon. Pathetically, I did not get around to making my second entry until May 2nd. With everything going on from lockdowns to toilet paper hysterics I guess I can give myself a pass for being a little shell shocked, but never for being a bad journalist. On that front I failed miserably and have no excuse. I should have been documenting such a historical moment in time from the very beginning, but instead, I completely dropped the ball. My journal entries since May have been a bit sporadic — the daily thing has never become a thing, but at least there has not been a gap nearly as wide as that first one.

That said, there will be no resolutions for me in 2021 except to keep putting one foot in front of the other, to keep doing the best I can in whatever I do regardless of what happens next. Perhaps this is the time when we all need to give ourselves a pass for not doing or being better than we think we should be, and instead, focus on how to best keep moving forward and be present for one another, keeping in mind that we are all fighting our own daily battles, however trivial they may seem in comparison to others less fortunate than ourselves. In these times a little empathy and compassion have the potential to go a hell of a long way toward healing. At the end of the day, most all of us are searching for the same thing, really — just the tiniest spec of light at the end of the tunnel that sometimes only someone else can help us see.

Thank you for reading. And may you all have a happy and safe New Year!