Goodbye, 2020! We Knew Ye Well!

 

So here we are, watching one of the weirdest years on record crawl out the back door.  It’s odd to write “weird”   about a year that’s not just personally weird.  It has been a globally weird year. Hardly a soul on the planet has been unaffected by the pandemic—the hype, the fear, the sadness, the illness, the death, the economic disaster.

And here in the US, we have had to pile Trump and MAGAts and all their antics on top of the pandemic shit heap.  And the way those antics have multiplied the disaster of the pandemic a hundredfold.

Yep. 2020 has been a shit sandwich.  And all that shit has piled up and sat on top of my brain and my fingers and my keyboard, and made it impossible to write more than flurries of 280-character tweets.

Looking over 17 years of “Coming to Terms,” I noticed that my all-time low of posting seems to have occurred  in 2014.  Thirty-seven posts in an entire year.  No idea what happened in 2014 that was so much more interesting than writing.  Or that might have been so heavy and horrid…or “weird”…that made it so I couldn’t write.   I’m never happy with all-time lows when it comes to writing.

And, lookie here! Only 36 entries for all of 2020!  I could do it!  I could hit a new all-time low!  And there would be no year more deserving than this shit sandwich of a pandemic, MAGAt, Trump-ridden, rotten-ass year.

But, no.   

I’m going to write a post.  This post.  And I’m going to stick it out there.

Because, in spite of all the shit that is 2020, I have things to be grateful for.  A lot of things.

We still have a roof over our heads, food to eat, vehicles to drive.

We have stayed healthy.

We have our  “children”—even though we’ve lost 3 in the space of a year.

We have family, who also have roofs over their heads, food to eat, vehicles to drive.

We have rejected, as a nation, a sick old snake oil salesman and his mob of criminals.

There is much to be thankful for.

So here are a few paragraphs, just to let the Universe know that I appreciate that 2020 could have been a lot worse.  And I am forever grateful that it wasn’t.

Goodbye, 2020.  You weren’t the worst.  But still…don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

 

Brighter Days Ahead

 

Thoughts on a Pandemic Holiday

 

 

What will I miss about this year’s non-holidays?

I don’t know. 

The past several years, my holiday observance has mostly consisted of decorating the crap out of the house (for my own enjoyment only, since we have no friends and I don’t entertain); buying a few presents for family (who don’t really need or want anything); attending holiday concerts or plays or some other entertainment (though these have become more rare, as time has gone by and tickets to such things have become prohibitively expensive.) 

At least the decorating has gone on anyway.  It’s not like I have to go out and GET decorations.  And I will say, decorating for the holidays has been the first time since March that I have actually felt NORMAL.  It’s the one thing the pandemic hasn’t tarnished, spoiled, or taken away.

Gift shopping has become more of a chore than a joy, so I won’t miss that.

 Concerts and such are so expensive, and the ones we can afford kind of…suck.  So I can take a pass on those this year without too much remorse.

Still, the holidays are a bit…flat.  We passed on Thanksgiving entirely—cooked up hamburgers and fries for the holiday feast for the two of us.  And we won’t be gathering with the family for Christmas, either.  We text, we Zoom; but I’m not comfortable with spending many hours in close quarters indoors with…well, anybody.  So that’s not going to happen.

But I got to thinking the other day:  There is one thing…a thing that actually disappeared more than a decade ago…that I will particularly miss this holiday season.   Because a pandemicly challenged Christmas would have been the perfect time for it.

And that is…

AOL j-land.

 

I remember those days, particularly the holidays of 2004 and 2005, when Journal-land was in its heyday.  We had such a lovely community, and we had a mostly good time getting to know each other and sharing traditions, pictures, games, stories, memories, and sometimes gifts, with people all over the country or even across the world.

I remember being so stoked about instant messaging with a journal friend who lived in the UK on New Years’ Eve 2004.  It seemed like such a miracle of technology…the very best this newfangled “internet” had to offer.

Social media in its infancy.

What a glorious couple of years!

And then social media grew up.  And became…well, we all know what it became.  Hardly bears thinking about, how quickly the human race turned what seemed such a bright and hopeful gift into a shithole.

I had to wade out of the Facebook cesspool over a year ago, mostly leaving behind the few friends I had left from the original AOL J-land.  I keep banging away here on Coming to Terms, but the old friends don’t come around much.  Or if they do, they choose to leave no trace…  And to add insult to injury, recent shifts in the blog continuum have erased the names from the comments on posts transferred here from AOL and rendered them all “anonymous,” so when I go back to visit the old neighborhood, it’s peopled with nameless ghosts.

But…yeah.  I thought about AOL J-Land the other day, and how its comfort and wonder and innocence would have been perfect during what promises to be a strangely detached and lonely holiday season.  Those connections were a treasure and a lifeline 15 years ago.  What a nurturing miracle they would be now!

Anyway…

Happy Holidays to any of my old Journal-land friends who may stop by.

Stay safe, stay healthy.  Get the shot when it gets around to you.

I miss you.