2020 has been a year to remember for a lot of us:  from the race for the Presidency in the US to the fallout from the global pandemic caused by the novel Coronavirus COVID19.  It’s been a heavy, heavy headspace for all of us.  Some of us are ok.  Some of us are not ok.  Some of us are pretending to be ok because we don’t want to admit that we’re not ok.  

For me, though, 2020 has been a reset.  A renewal.  Rejuvenation, renovation, restoration. 

2019 began with the passing of my father — the killick to my kite. I watched the great love of my life slowly drift away from me for the better part of two years, only to finally leave me for good. 

Then my son — my “baby” — closed out his senior year of high school with a run for the State Championship in baseball and I began counting down how many Saturdays until the nest was empty.  The end of an era.  For 22 years, my life has been defined by children — managing their schedules, keeping them healthy and alive, supporting their successes in school and athletics.  Stitches.  Birthday cakes.  Sleepless nights.  Celebrations. It went too fast and I was filled with concerns over whether or not I had taught them enough, loved them enough, tempered their spirits enough…given them wings.  Did I read enough bedtime stories?  Did I comfort them enough when they were wounded?  Did I encourage independence and courage or did I keep them too close?  I wanted my children out in the world, off exploring, being whomever they were going to become.  But the process — the leaving process — was excruciating. 

Just as he was beginning his new life, my daughter was preparing to graduate from college — another ending, another beginning.  She is never going to sleep in her pink, zebra themed bedroom again.  I didn’t pay enough attention to the last time:  the last family movie night, the last trip to the pool, the last visit from the Tooth Fairy, the last Christmas with everyone home, the last Build-A-Bear.  

I had a medical scare and lost my ovaries, cervix, and uterus — the things that made me a woman…a mother. Not that I wanted another baby at age 50, but that I couldn’t ushered in a feeling of despair that I hadn’t prepared for.  Maybe because it came so close to the day we moved our son to college.  Maybe because I was struggling to figure out who I was without my dad and suddenly I had to figure out what I was without the ability to be a mother or children at home to mother.  

Then my marriage of 27 years ended.  Abruptly.  Most people say that the road to divorce was a slow one.  Death by a thousand cuts.  Chipped away little by little, like your favorite dishes that one day you realize are just too damaged to be used.  Mine didn’t feel like that.  I never saw it coming.  I was looking forward to reconnecting and redefining our relationship without children at home.  I bought him a double kayak as a symbol of what I’d hoped was to come.  I thought we were happy. 

The timing was particularly hard because the holidays were coming, and my birthday.  I had never celebrated mine without also celebrating my dad’s, and it seemed somehow wrong or unfair to be allowed to have mine when he couldn’t have his.  He always said I was his gift, and it seemed selfish to have my cake and eat it, too when he couldn’t be with me to share it.  

2019 was a year of grief and loss.  The depression that I have battled since I was a child had awakened.  I had wide mood swings.   I lashed out at people I loved.  I withdrew when my world was too people-y.  I slept too much and ate too much.  Some days I couldn’t get off the couch, let alone talk on the phone. I adopted a uniform of soft pants and a holey tee shirt.  I struggle, but I survive. 

So when I rang in the new year to 2020, I had the mindset that things could only get better.  I was hopeful that the elephant sitting on my chest would lift at least one toe so I could start to breathe.  Then COVID arrived in the US. 

My son came home from college, and at first the lockdown was kinda fun — we cooked at home more and we walked the dog more and we had each other for company.  Without the outside world we were forced to lean on each other for entertainment and companionship and comfort.  I would be lying if I said I didn’t secretly love having him home.  It was almost like the universe was rewarding me for surviving the previous year.  As summer wore on and the world reopened, I was happy with my little job at the golf course and more freedom to work with the horses and spend time with my friends.  I missed our annual trip to Myrtle Beach, but mostly because I was sad about last year being the last year as a family, but our weather was great and life had slowed down and summer was everything that summer is supposed to be — the only thing missing was the annual sojourn to Cincinnati to see Jimmy Buffett with my brother. 

So despite the good — albeit weird — summer, we were doing ok with COVID until school started. I feel lucky to teach at a school that has really good protocols to mitigate the effects of the virus, but it’s still hard.  I am grateful my son is able to continue his college experience.  We have students attending in person, and students attending remotely, some synchronously and some asynchronously.  We have rearranged furniture in classrooms to maintain social distancing, and everyone wears masks in the buildings.  We fog every room and we have HEPA filters in every room.  We wipe down high touch surfaces every 30 minutes.  We screen everyone first thing in the morning for symptoms, and we shift when we need to in order to accommodate anyone in the community who needs to isolate or quarantine.  All in all, it’s going really well.  But.  All the parts of school that kids love are not happening:  hanging out with friends, school dances and special events, spectatorless sports…physical touch.  And it’s starting to take its toll on everyone.  Despite our mental and emotional energy being focused on what is going well, there is still a small undercurrent of grief and loss — those things that our seniors were looking forward to that will just not happen, now.  But no one close to me has become seriously ill with the virus, so I will be grateful for that for now. 

I have said from the beginning that COVID is Mother Nature’s response to systems out of balance:  our government, the climate, the education system.  Despite the hard, I see pockets of improvement.  We just elected the first woman to the Vice Presidency.  Students are thriving in digital learning, despite years of being told that students cannot learn online.  The fall foliage is the most vibrant it has ever been, following the greenest summer I have seen in a long time — I think the earth is healing.  I know I am.

I celebrated my dad’s birthday with him on 11/9 at the cemetery.  I will celebrate my own without him on Thursday 11/12.  Little by little I can pretend that being alone is getting easier, which means that actual easier is right around the corner.  Like a swimmer dipping a toe into the cold water, I’m looking forward to plunging into 2021.  /rɪˈzɪljənt/