Happy New Year’s Eve! (Is that a thing people say? Anyway, it might be 2022 by the time you are reading this.) It’s hard to believe a whole year has gone by. At this time last year, many people were ready to move on from 2020 and hopeful about what 2021 would bring. A year on, you may still feel very much in limbo. Cancelled holiday plans, smaller-than-usual family gatherings, concern about the health and well-being of loved ones. In our family, R and I are self-isolating at my parents’ house after potentially being exposed to Covid. While we have had two negative tests in the past two days, we are still largely confining ourselves to two rooms upstairs, away from my parents, and the rest of the family has cancelled plans for new year celebrations as a result. We feel terrible about all this disruption we have caused for our family here, and grateful to my parents for going with the flow and making space for us.
This morning, as I sat down to write this post, a poem that my mother shared with me years ago just popped into mind (it’s actually a refrigerator magnet I’ve carried with me from place to place for the last 10 years). If you are facing your own uncertainty or disruption, I hope this poem brings you some comfort. After all, we are all learning about what’s most important in these times.
