2020.

2 oh 2 OH. 

Oh is a good word for you. 

As in, Oh GOD. 

You were… a year. 

I suppose you were trying to make your mark. 

The last time it was the roaring twenties it was roaring with exuberance and prosperity, not loss and rage. 

Maybe you felt you had to be different. 

Part of me feels a bit sorry for you, like I’m a bit sorry for all damaged things and think I can fix them, when really I can’t actually fix anything, including myself, especially right now, in your immediate wake. 

But I am still sorry for you because everyone HATES you – this history they had to live through. 

Or, you know, not. 

I’m also sorry for 2021. 

As someone who crumbles under any type of pressure I feel like a lot of people have a lot invested in 2021 – and it might not actually be able to deliver. 

Others might say it’s only got to meet a pretty low bar, but I don’t think that’s true. So many people just made it through, waiting for you, 2021, pinning their hopes on you. Thinking you’d solve all their problems. 

And of course we bring our problems with us…

They take little notice of thresholds, like the ticking over a year, problems. 

Trust me on this. 

It’s why the whole ‘New Year, New You’ thing is so doomed. You’re still YOU. January 1 changes nothing unless you decide to change it. The year cannot in and of itself make you lose 2 stone, stop shouting at your kids, give up cheese and write that damn novel. Only you can. And change is so very hard… 

Especially when so much of it is already being done TO you and not BY you. 

I’m talking about you again, 2020.

Of course, 2020 you had to live up to stuff, too. Your awful symmetry, for start. That’s got to be hard, right? Like being model-beautiful has to be hard – a sort of backwards curse. No wonder you rebelled with such ugliness. 

You were also a pseudonym for clarity – 2020 vision. And you definitely took that bit to heart. Because if nothing else 2020 certainly showed us a few things more clearly… 

It showed us climate change. 

It showed us white privilege. 

It showed us division, inequality.

It showed us elitism. Sexism. Racism. All the other dicky isms. Inside and out.

It showed us desperation. 

It showed us fear. 

It showed us loneliness.

It showed us the power of popular lies, feelings over facts, slogans over science. 

It showed us selfishness, and ignorance, and insular myopia. 

It showed us the importance of loo rolls. 

It showed us we weren’t washing our hands enough.

It showed us our own fragility. 

It showed us our lack of patience, lack of resilience, how close we were to the edge.

It showed us the cracks in ourselves, in our relationships, in our society.

It showed us our worst bits as both individuals and as human beings. 

And it showed us the best bits, too. 

It showed us what was really important. 

It showed us what heroes really look like.

It showed us experts. 

It showed us communities. 

It showed us small things make a big difference. 

It showed us kindness mattered. 

It showed us our families – and helped us see the families around us.

It showed us what we had in common. 

It showed us that we could work in new ways. 

It showed us simple pleasures. 

It showed us social welfare was important – and politics was important. 

It showed us PEOPLE were important. 

It showed us our power when we rise up, and when we rise to a communal challenge.

It showed us, even on our very worst days, when we didn’t think we could do any more or give any more, that we could. 

It showed us that showing up mattered – on a doorstep to clap, for a neighbour in isolation, as an ally, as a voter, as a volunteer, for our own confused and scared and often crappy kids. For each other. For our damn vaccinations. 

If we can say anything for 2021, just a few days in, we can say it SHOWED UP. 

No, it may technically not have had any choice in the matter, but I’m choosing to see it as a Good Start. 

Welcome 2021. 

Don’t worry about anything. There’s no pressure. 

We have seen our problems. 

We will work on them. 

We are ready to BE the change this New Year, and not expect you to do it all yourself by magic, and be all disappointed and blamey when you don’t.

All you really have to do is roll on gently, try not to kill too many people, and leave the rest to us. 

Bests, 

MOTNE & People

xxxx