Peace Out

Dear 2020,

So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye. . .

Those words from “The Sound of Music” have never seemed as apropos to me as they do now. I’m ready for you to go, 2020. You have wreaked enough havoc with our lives. Caused enough pain. Taken so much that you’ve left us breathless at times. But you’ve also given us some unexpected gifts. And before you go, I’d like to thank you for those.

Thank you for teaching me the true definitions of words I thought I knew. Words like home. When we were forced to stay home because of you, I looked around at the four walls that now held my whole world—my husband, our cats, and me. It was home, and it was enough. More than enough. The five of us hunkered down together, and our home became a sacred space where we played and laughed and cried and endured and prayed. We held on to each other, often literally. And we made it through the best and the worst of times.

You also taught me the true meaning of the word “essential.” When the outside world was stripped away, I had to find what was essential in my life. So many things that I thought were necessary for me to live a full life simply weren’t. Certain activities weren’t as important as I’d thought they were. When they were no longer an option, I looked at what remained. And those were the essential parts of my life: my family. My faith. My writing. And my job. I didn’t consider my job to be an essential part of my life before you, 2020. I didn’t define myself by it; it was just something I did because that’s what adults do—work and contribute to their households and society. But as people began to lose their jobs because of you, I realized how grateful I was to still have mine. I work for our family business, and I’ve always been very cognizant of the blessing that it is to work with the people that mean so much to me. Monty and I have the privilege of working from home—sometimes in our own offices and sometimes together—to contribute to the business that supports our family and many of our friends. Essential? Absolutely. And I’m more grateful for it than ever.

You also showed me the people that were essential to me: Monty. My parents. My brother and his family. My sisters and their families. My friends in recovery. Some relationships didn’t survive the litmus test you gave me—when I asked myself if a relationship was essential and evaluated it, I found that many were completely one-sided. I was the only one who cared to contribute enough to keep the relationship alive. And as much as it saddened me to let those kinds of relationships go, I felt freer and more honest in the relationships I still had. And I’ve worked harder at those relationships because I now see how important they are.

There were parts of you that were brutal. And there were times when you almost broke me—times when I cried and mourned and begged God to show Himself to me. I have new scars because of those times—literal and figurative ones. I have places in my heart that are only now beginning to mend after you broke them. Over the spring and summer, I felt like I had a target on my back and you were throwing every weapon in your arsenal at me. You tested my character. My sobriety. My mental health. My physical health. And I didn’t pass every test you threw my way. I failed miserably at some and will always carry those regrets. But the tests I did pass taught me this: I’m more resilient than I thought. And when I leaned on God, which I learned to do more than ever before, He carried me through places I never could have made it through on my own.

I’ve always believed that the beautiful can mend the broken—that finding beauty in the daily routines of life and fighting for the beautiful in the most brutal times can heal, elevate, and bless our hearts and spirits. 2020, you gave me the opportunity more than ever before to put that theory into practice. And every single time I did, it worked. On days when I was recovering from surgery and literally had to crawl out of bed, I found beauty in the patches of sunlight on Seamus when he walked slowly beside me as I crawled. When a friend died, I fought through the grief by remembering the beautiful lessons he’d taught me in the time we’d had together. When I felt the familiar darkness of depression closing in on me, I watched our boys playing, and I smiled. On a night when I was feeling hopeless because of unrelenting physical pain, I listened to Monty whistle the theme to “Family Feud” while he made us dinner, and gratitude lifted my spirits as I thought about the way that his constant cheer and unparalleled love are healing medicine on even the darkest of days. You have forced me to fight for the beautiful, 2020, and I have. And in doing it again and again and again, it has become more and more natural—as Monty would say, it’s starting to become my default setting.

As Monty also would say, it’s time for a reboot. A fresh start. I’m ready for you to go, 2020. There are ten days left of you, and I plan to enjoy every one. The holidays won’t be the way I thought they would. I don’t know if I’ll get to spend them with my extended family or not. But I will get to spend them with the essentials, at home: with Monty and our boys, looking for the beauty in each day and thanking God when I find it. And on New Year’s Eve, when we count down to midnight, I’ll be finding beauty in watching you go. I don’t know what the next year holds, but I know God holds it just as He holds all of us. I pray that we can meet the New Year with the strength we found because of you.

Thank you for the lessons. You’re free to go now. So goodbye. Hasta la vista. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

Renee