2021: Continuing to Climb
A little New Year's Day throwback to a little bit of normal(ish) awesome.
2020 was a dumpster fire filled with massive ruts in the road and grief both mild and terrible. It's hard to say good things about a year when so many I hold dear experienced loss and pain. It's also hard to begin 2021 with joy when I know there isn't an off switch that will change the state of the world at midnight. The best way I've found to describe 2020 is as a chasm. The earth opened up and swallowed us. We all fell into our own individual pit and hit the bottom to find ourselves alone in a dark and unfamiliar place. Some of us fell deeper than others. They lost jobs, entire industries, homes, loved ones. Their climb out of the chasm is steeper and harder. Some were lucky and their chasm was shallow. They got thrown off their schedule and had to change plans. They've been able to see sunlight above them from the beginning. Every bright and wonderful thing that happened in 2020 was a little handhold offering you a chance to climb out of your chasm. Maybe it only let you get six inches higher, but you were gaining ground. Every awful thing shook the walls and cracked the floor and sent you tumbling down to the bottom of the pit, and you just had to hope you could rally and find the strength to start climbing again. It takes an incredible amount of endurance to keep believing that another good thing will happen and another handhold will appear. But it does. Good things happen even when you're living in a dumpster fire. I'll never be grateful for 2020, but I do know how lucky I was to have some really amazing handholds to help me climb out of my chasm. I managed to publish books and audiobooks. I adopted two kittens, who bring an infinite amount of joy to my life. I got to go back on stage for a little bit, even if it was nothing like the time I've spent in the theatre before. Stepping into the New Year won't magically make the chasms we've fallen into disappear, but it will offer another handhold. We will make it out of this. Even if you can't see it, there is solid ground waiting for you. Keep climbing. You can make it.
