Above All Else, I Hope 2020 Has Taught You This

it’s been a tough year because the pandemic, or other circumstances, brought out the worst in everybody. because survival mode is no longer about coexisting. it’s survival of the fittest. because whether we like to admit it or not, we were scared, uncomfortable, lonely, bored, sad, confused.

some more than others.

if anything, i hope this year has taught you who to love and how far you are ready to go just to be around certain people. i hope this year has taught you that you cannot live your life in fear of being too close or too sensible or too weak. fear of weakness is weakness itself. and the harder you push away the people you love, the deeper the hurt in both you and them. i hope this year has been teaching you all along that you deserve love in the way you want love to be, but also in ways you never thought you needed to feel love.

i hope this year has taught you who not to love. i hope you learned that almost love is truly heart wrenching. because almost happy won’t keep your heart and mind safe. not for a long time, anyway. because you can only give so much from one side of a closed door. but also, i believe that those people you chose to give your love to are the people who needed it the most.

i hope this year has taught you the importance of a hug. and how nobody will ever fill in the void left by a hug interrupted too soon. and to what extent you would go to feel that person in your arms again, just once, just for a second more. and i hope this year has also taught you that you will be okay even if that hug never happens again.

i hope this year has taught you about moments. about that shared look. about that note passed in fear. about all the tears. about that kiss. about that smile. about that one joke, one annoying habit that you secretly loved. i hope this year has taught you about the importance of these memories. i also hope you learned that you cannot create a picture of a person from memories created months prior.

as my mother told me, “i hope this year taught you what love is. and that love is not just hope.”

i hope this year has taught you that you need to stay only in places you feel at home. and those places do not have to be “home”. i hope this year has taught you that your mind, your thoughts, are only important to you, and you are in full control of who you share them with. whoever shames you for fully personal things has no right to have access to your soul or your mind.

i am proud of you. i am proud of you for making it this far, because i have no idea how intensely you felt things. i am proud of you if all you did this year was survive. and things will not magically improve once the clocks show 12 a.m. on New Year’s day. they might not magically improve for months after. but i hope you have the strength, or the patience, to wait along with everyone else until they do.

i promise you, things will work out.

and please, check up on people you love.

or on people.

children.

grandparents.

those that look like they have it together.

those that look like they do not have it together.

because really, honestly, nobody wants to be left behind.

nobody wants to be alone.