The return of Standard Time, that whole “fall back” thing, feels like a slap in the face in 2020.
As if a newly resurgent uncontrolled pandemic weren’t dark enough, now the sun disappears over the horizon so much earlier now.
I’m pretty sure I have seasonal affective disorder. Even the lovely Sarah texted to check on me today to see if I was sad about the earlier darkness. I was out walking at the time, so I was doing something productive in the face of the coming twilight which always helps.
It’s been a tough year, the coronavirus and election notwithstanding. I’ve lost three friends to cancer, including the second person I met when I moved to Knoxville in 1992. It’s no exaggeration that Bonnie was like a second mother. Amber was one of the lights of my advocacy life, and Beth was an amazingly strong woman who faced stage-4 colorectal cancer with grace and a kick-ass attitude.
There was the whole cancer recurrence scare, a reduction in force at work, working from home for endless days on end, and yet …
And yet …
This year hasn’t been complete darkness. I had a birthday and an eighth-year of survivorship celebration. Sarah and I celebrated our anniversary. We took a trip to Asheville. I raised an amazing amount of money for ACS CAN Lights of Hope. All of the things I love doing every year pivoted to virtual events, like peer review for the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, ACS CAN Leadership Summit and Lobby Day, and the Thompson Cancer Survival Center Race Against Cancer, etc.
Most of us managed to do what we always do in the face of adversity. We keep f’ing going.
What choice do we have, really?
Perhaps no other year in recent memory has required us to be more resilient.
No one asked for a pandemic and lockdowns, or making decisions about whether to work from home or work from work, or balance the educational needs of our children with the needs of the workplace, and all of the things that have been baked into this year.
I’ve complained about having to wear a mask in public, I’ve posted funny memes about how horrible 2020 has been, and I want life to go back to normal as soon as possible.
Normal isn’t going to happen anytime soon. So we have to keep f’ing going.
We’re on the cusp of electing a new president. The results may be contentious and there are fears of an uprising from unhappy supporters on both sides. I hope it doesn’t come to that. We get the chance at electing a new president in four years (well, barring any constitutional changes). Between now and then, we keep f’ing going.
After the election, we enter the holiday season. Thanksgiving, Hannukah, Christmas and Kwanzaa may all look different this year because of the pandemic. We will be disappointed. We’ll collectively grieve another season of losses as events and experiences get cancelled or changed. And we’ll keep f’ing going.
Finally, I know a lot of people who are looking forward to 12:01 a.m. January 1, like there is truly some magical line between when the crap year ends and the fresh year begins. I’m not a prognosticator, but I’m pretty sure January 1 is going to look a lot like right now.
Know what? We’ll keep f’ing going.
We have to.
No Comments