Member-only story
New Year 2021
This is not our usual ‘New Year’ celebration, is it? We are now two full years into this relentless pandemic. We are, as Americans, at each other’s throats every single day over concepts both serious and stupid. Should we work to protect the rights of all voters to express themselves in each election? Should we push back against the biases we see in our media outlets? Do we really have to wear masks in the grocery store? Why do I need to get a vaccination if I’m not likely to die from this disease?
This year we find ourselves facing a New Year’s Eve that is fraught with anger, with frustration, with fear, with sorrow.
For me, and my immediate family, this is the year without our parents. This is our first look into a future with neither Mom nor Dad. A year in which we feel unbalanced, unanchored, adrift.
I want to write the usual hopes for the upcoming year, and the usual funny looks back on the mistakes and mix ups of last year.
But I can’t.
This year, I find that I am simply blank. There are not thoughts in this weary head.
As I watch the waning days of 2021, all I feel is resignation.
I am resigned to the fact that more and more people are going to get sick in the next few weeks. I’m resigned to the realization that our country, and humanity as a whole, has…
