It was a pretty haphazard, thrown-together Christmas card. Conceived, shot, produced and sent to the store for printing in no time at all. We’re talking less than an hour. Maybe a record!
We crowded around the Christmas tree in whatever we were wearing. We had a dog, a cat, a chicken and a blind Florida yard lizard. All the while a camera on a crooked mount fired off photos. The lighting was mediocre at best. We took at most five shots, found one where the dog didn’t look deranged and then uploaded it to a digital Christmas card template with holly around the edges. We sprinkled in some words my wife heard somewhere:
“It’s fine. We’re fine. Everything is fine.”
It sounded like a song. A refrain. Something a kid says after launching himself on a bike off a wobbly ramp and plowing face-first into the dirt. Pop-up as quick as you can like nothing catastrophic just happened. Lift your hands high into the air to show your bones are still nominally attached. Smile through the terrible pain, and the fact that some gravel is now permanently affixed to your skull. Scream out in sing-song fashion: “It’s fine. We’re fine. Everything is fine.” Then collapse in a heap and wait for the sirens to arrive.
All-in-all, kind of sums up 2020, doesn’t it? Just get through it. Get done with it. As quick as you can. As best you can. Everyone will give you a pass. It’s a COVID-Christmas. NEXT!!!
A year when production values and high standards fell to the wayside. When looking your best played second-fiddle to looking like you hadn’t just woken up. When you relished the thought of wearing a mask because it meant you didn’t have to shave. And had not for, say … I don’t know … 3 or 4 weeks.
The year 2020. Motto: Hit the ramp, went face-first into the dirt.
But it wasn’t all bad, was it? Thinking back. Reflecting. I mean, it was a wild one. A devastating one. Even if you came out a winner in the presidential election, you’re still feeling around in your mouth to see if your teeth are all there. Did anyone get the license plate of the truck that hit us?
But was it ALL bad?
I’m not so sure. I got really good at puzzles. I learned my hair parts naturally to the left. I discovered the joy of frozen pizza. I started wearing colorful socks!
Some good things happened. My daughter finished 8th grade and started high school in 2020. Ironically, I thought I would see her less and less. But as a virtual student, and me working remotely so often, we saw each other more and more. I’m thankful for that. Lunches together while watching re-runs of “Friends.” Passing each other in the kitchen like co-workers taking coffee and snack breaks. Handing off pages from the printer or tag-teaming our cursing sessions as the WIFI went down, just as an important Zoom session was about to start. “Gods of the Internet, why do you forsake us!?! Oh … never mind. It’s back up.”
The year was an odd one. Think of everything we did. Hoarding toilet paper. Learning how to bake bread. How to cut our own hair. How to wash our hands. (I never did that before … just ran my hands under the tap long enough to convince my family I was doing something hygienic.)
I learned to slow down and take things one at a time. To find peace in stillness, and not always race on to the next thing. I learned that the simplest things in life shouldn’t be taken for granted. And for that matter, that taking ANYTHING for granted was silly, shortsighted, and would fill you with regret. Health. Family. Friends. Work. Finances. Mental health. Getting out into nature. Frozen pizza. It all seemed more precious this year. More valuable and sacred. More important, and like we needed to recognize that. Appreciate it. Never forget it.
Maybe 2020 – complicated jerk that it was – really had a lesson to teach us. A bad year, certainly, and not one to ever be repeated. But still loaded with some takeaways that we would be foolish not to remember. To heed. Or even to find satisfaction in. I’ll miss the coffee breaks with my daughter. But maybe I should recognize that there are new moments happening all around me, and in the future I can’t let them pass so easily. So unnoticed. Maybe that’s the lesson.
So, goodbye 2020. If there’s one thing we can say, it’s that you’ll never be forgotten. And we do thank you for all you taught us about ourselves – our strength, our resiliency, our perseverance. Our ability to find little moments of joy and togetherness even in hard times. To learn new things about ourselves. Like how to crank out haphazard Christmas cards. And how to pop back up when we face-plant in the dirt, declaring to the universe: “It’s fine. We’re fine. Everything is fine.”