A New Baseline

2020 was a firestorm, dominated by survival and reaction. It was hard, full of work, shock and fear.

2021 was a slog, the long tail of missed expectations and setbacks. It was a never-ending malaise abounding with false starts and dashed hopes.

2022 is still an unknown—a scant 12 hours old. Of course I am hopeful, but I am no fool. Once you bottom out there is only one trajectory available.

I am looking forward to a fresh year, but I am increasingly comfortable with a new reality that resembles the 2020s more than the before times. It is important to mourn loss instead of constantly trying to move on. If one accepts the reality of the last two years, it becomes easier to set proper expectations and adjust to upheaval.

I don’t want to feel constantly decimated by the news, society, loss. Surely, I don’t want to grow numb to such feelings, but if the world’s baseline has changed then so should my personal barometer. I will operate within this new paradigm instead of pushing against it subconsciously.

This New Year’s Day I am excited but not naive, cautiously optimistic but not headstrong. There has been plenty of good amongst the struggles of the last two years, and that is worth celebrating. It is also okay to admit that it has been very hard.

I would like a pleasant surprise, 2022, but I’ll be more resilient to whatever you have in store, regardless.