{"id":5869,"date":"2020-12-31T19:21:39","date_gmt":"2021-01-01T03:21:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=5869"},"modified":"2020-12-31T19:21:36","modified_gmt":"2021-01-01T03:21:36","slug":"twenty-twenty-twenty-four-hours-to-go-victoria-bc-12-31-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=5869","title":{"rendered":"Twenty, Twenty, Twenty-Four Hours to Go \u2013 Victoria, BC \u2013 [12\/31\/2020]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Let\u2019s let the old year die with a fond goodbye
\nAnd our hopes as high as a kite..<\/em><\/p>\n

Well, maybe not so much \u201cfond\u201d as a \u201cgood riddance you kill-joy!\u201d and perhaps some of us are a bit tempted to keep our hopes\u2026low\u2026<\/p>\n

Good Goddess, where do I even start?<\/p>\n

Every year I find it relatively straight forward to look back at the previous twelve months and do a mental review of the good, the bad and the brilliant. And normally the good and the brilliant actually well outweigh the bad and the ugly\u2026<\/p>\n

But this year\u2026oooo this year is giving me a run for my money.<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s get the nasty bits out of the way: 2020 has been\u2026one of the hardest years in memory. For me. Most likely for you, though I don\u2019t know who is reading this at this particular moment in time. It\u2019s put us through the wringer backwards, and \u2013 in my case \u2013 delivered some unexpected uppercuts right in the last moments of the final round.<\/p>\n

On a personal level, myself and Amras both witnessed the complete shut down of both of our main industries, throwing us into an uncertain spiral that we mostly level out from on a day to day basis. Hell, we were basically in a very luxurious prison for the first few months of the year! But we survived that too. And there\u2019s more sorrow in my little bubble than there was at the beginning of the year too\u2026my family lost dear dear friends and I lost at least one colleague. There have been many many days when getting up in the morning? Has been an exhausting fight. On a global level\u2026well, we all know what happened on a global level. The world ground to a halt, and surprised me by completely pulling together, and that made me weep by once again trying to tear itself apart. I\u2019ve seen humanity at it\u2019s best and its worst in the last twelve months. There have been moments of exuberant joy and kindness that have stood out in a sea of grey sorrow that seems to have been determined to lap around our ankles and pull us down like the horse in The Never-ending Story<\/em> (I knew there was a reason I never liked that movie). We had our chance at coming together as a global community, and for a little while, in little shining sparks\u2026we made it. And those moments give me an incredible amount of hope.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s really no sugar-coating it, this has been a horrid<\/em> turn on the rollercoaster. And many of us have hated nearly every moment of it.<\/p>\n

But\u2026it is an ill wind that doesn\u2019t blow some good. And it\u2019s a waste of an ordeal if it doesn\u2019t teach us something.<\/p>\n

So\u2026what has this hell of a year given me? Us? Well\u2026I can\u2019t speak for everyone, so I\u2019ll just speak for me. 2020 has taught me that \u2013 even at my weakest \u2013 I am stronger than I ever thought possible. I have seen things this year that have made me want to run away and hide, and yet somehow, I\u2019m still here. Still upright. Still mostly in one piece. It has taught me that there were skills hidden in the back of my mind that I didn\u2019t know I had until I actually had<\/em> to rely on them (oi, what this year has taught me about balancing a budget!), it\u2019s given me a deeper appreciation and understanding of how important family is, because sometimes it takes the ones closest to you being in danger to make you realize how dear to you they really are. It\u2019s given me a bone deep sense of humility, and made me realize that there are so so many things in this world that we don\u2019t understand and cannot control, so the only option we have left is to love those things we do have all the more fiercely. It has given me an awareness of just how selfish I can sometimes be, and made me more focused on trying to set that self-centeredness aside for the good of others. Because I hope, that if I am ever in a position where I need it, others would do the same for me.<\/p>\n

It has given me the time to get to know my landlocked coworkers again, to the point where some people I barely knew before are now considered \u2013 if not friends, at least close acquaintances. It has made me appreciate my support network even more and taught me exactly who that support network is.<\/p>\n

I have learned more about working as a unit, instead of only as a pair of individuals, and learned not to be afraid to ask for help when I need it.<\/p>\n

I have learned that it is okay to not be strong all the time, and that those who truly care about you will respect your tears; and that sometimes they\u2019ll even bike 15 minutes in the rain to bring you something you forgot. Or they\u2019ll offer to make your lunch, even though everything in society says that you\u2019re really beyond the point where you should be making your own.<\/p>\n

2020 has taught me to appreciate the little things. The things that are so easy to pass over. Because when the world is forced to a stand still, you start to see those little things more. You start to notice more things. Even if it\u2019s just the birds outside your window, or the knowledge that you finally planted flower seeds for the first time. The chill of the winter sunlight on my face when I take off my mask after work. The flex of my own muscles as I get stronger riding my bike.<\/p>\n

All the little things.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not na\u00efve enough to say that \u201c2021 will fix everything\u201d. It won\u2019t. It\u2019s just another day on a calander that we as a society made up a long time ago. It\u2019s not going to magically heal the world.<\/p>\n

But it remains true that the only thing you can control about the next 12 months? Is what you decide to do with it, and the attitude you decide to take. So perhaps, while it can\u2019t reset the world, we can maybe use it to reset ourselves. Not by going to the gym or starting a new diet or setting some impossible new goal\u2026but by simple choosing to\u2026be enough for ourselves. To take a breath, and adjust our sails\u2026<\/p>\n

This is the start of a new journey\u2026however you choose to look at it. Take what this horrific year taught you and try to apply it for the best\u2026so that the next chapter of this new 365 day story? Will be a good one.<\/p>\n

Bright Blessings<\/p>\n

Shaughnessy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s let the old year die with a fond goodbye And our hopes as high as a kite.. Well, maybe not so much \u201cfond\u201d as a \u201cgood riddance you kill-joy!\u201d and perhaps some of us are a bit tempted to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[111,17,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-in-the-times-of-covid","category-reflections-below-the-waterline","category-sadie"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3GtNE-1wF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5869"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5871,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5869\/revisions\/5871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}