Reflections on my 2020, part 0: a teaser

"Fast away the old year passes..."

A disclosure: I'm not particularly a fan of the song "Deck the Halls," from which the above line comes. But I've always been interested in that line, because that's how it always seems to me each December. "Where did the year go??"

But 2020 was no ordinary year. And I know that's boiling it down quite a bit. The pandemic changed everything. My job, Songs by Heart, could no longer do sessions live in memory care units or any other division within retirement communities. Church switched to meeting online only. So did all of my regular group meetings through the week. Gigs and rehearsals stopped happening, because, well, it's kind of impossible to play music through a video call without serious latency, which in a conversation is no issue but is everything when it comes to music, because of the requirement for precision of timing.

Of course, many people also were laid off, and there were copious amounts of protests and riots (I guess COVID-19 must've "taken a break" for those folks). And then an election that was at best suspicious.

I know of many people who are likely happy for 2020 to be over. (I say "likely" because I've only talked to a handful who have explicitly said as much. I'm simply guessing regarding the others.) I get it: for them and for many, 2020 was simply the worst year of their lives -- in some cases, by far.

So it comes with some awkwardness, out of respect for such persons, that I say that I had a good, nay, great 2020. And that's what this upcoming blog series is going to be about. On the one hand, I am sad that 2020 is leaving because of it, and also because I know not all years are created equal. (I've had my fair share of bad years following good ones.) But on the other hand, because of the type of wonderful things that have happened in my life over the last 12 months, I'm actually hopeful that 2021 will be a continuation of the such. Sure, I'm cautiously optimistic, a deeply-ingrained trait I learned from different adult figures growing up, but I am optimistic. What I am choosing to let help me this time around is holding on to Jesus and His Word. The world is getting crazier, anyway, which is completely out of my control but not out of His. As such:

"Hail the new, ye lads and lasses..."