When I woke up this morning one thing came to mind – “My God, it’s the last day of 2020…”.
At that I felt as though I should write something. But what could possibly be said after a year like this?.. I mean, it’s hard enough attempting to make sense and give voice to the words trapped within at the best of times, let alone trying to fathom the wider world and everything within it.
And, yet… with each passing year, we make our way through this wilderness. We trudge through the swamp that represents our internal turmoil, we push aside the hanging chaos around us, the misery of an ever-ageing earth… and we find a way. So I guess I can do the same…
Because that’s what we do. We find a way. We live. We reach the end of each year, and we do so together. Aging and laughing and learning, as does the world. And, as does the world, we experience anger and frustration, and we cry, and spit and grit our teeth and try desperately to understand it all.
And even though we do this, even though we insist on committing our mind to the relentless turmoil that is trying to understand the functionality of the entire world, even though we blindly step forward into the internal battle that is the nature of the entire human race, even though we spit and grit our teeth in the process of all this struggle. We still find time for happiness.
As we should.
But how? This year has been so uniquely difficult for us all. And in terms of my own difficulties… well, it’s not often the best hope in your struggle to live fails before your eyes, and your life suddenly turns down a road in which you can actually see the end from where you’re standing. It’s not often you’re made to face the fact that everything you represent may be inching towards oblivion, that all your thoughts and feelings and memories might disappear far sooner than it should. (Not to mention the physical removal of my right eye, which when you consider isn’t the worst thing to happen to me this year, shows how tough 2020 truly was.)
But these things happened, and in response to such an all-encompassing struggle, I found myself treasuring every moment I could find, grasping onto each and every memory I could create, every piece of wonder I could see and feel and hear gathered up like the broken fragments of something once utterly precious.
It’s frightening, it’s upsetting, it’s confusing… yet, somehow also eye opening. I found myself noticing our repetition, our grit and dirt, our faults and fights. In a year of the gravest of turmoils, I could see it all – And it didn’t effect me. Because the beauty was still there. Underneath the grime of this year, I could see the world continuing to turn, to glow, its warmth still covering us all. I could see the world suffering, yet still, somehow improving…
What I experienced this year is what someone will experience next year, and what someone already experienced last year. The struggle of 2020 is the struggle of every year, the struggle of every human being, the struggle of existence itself. I was never alone, no matter how terrifying or how overwhelming, the beauty always counted. And it’s that which we should train our eyes upon.
To live is to experience all that life throws our way. We are to suffer if we are to love. We are to cry if we are to laugh. Every word we speak has meaning, yet so much we say is meaningless. We shout for change, but when it comes we cry for normality. Everything turns in circles, our struggles, our hypocrisy, the world, even life itself.
This year, for so many of us, has been the weirdest, the hardest, maybe the one we wish to forget the most, and it’s quite normal, in response to difficult times, to simply begin again. To forget and move on. But perhaps better is to gather up the fragments of this chaotic year and treasure them as the valuable memories they are.
As I said, I can see the end from here. But there’s no regrets, I just have thanks. And such a thing might just be a word, but there’s so much behind it. So many reasons to say it, so many ways to express it. So much desire to feel it, to share it, to give it.
To me, happiness, in its purest form, means we’ve learnt something. We’ve taken that struggle and we’ve used it to better ourselves, to appreciate who we are and what we represent, with a smile and with laughter. That’s what happiness is. A reward, a reward for absorbing knowledge, in whatever form it comes. And the act of expressing thanks at the end of it all, rather than anger or hatred, is a symbol of a mind truly at peace.
Each year is one more page in our history, one more paragraph of vital knowledge we should use to better ourselves. To be thankful, to be aware and appreciative of everything we have and everything we’ve learned… that might be the greatest happiness of all.
I know it’s cliche to say it, but it really is the little things in life we should give thanks for. In my case the actual little things, as in my Nephews and Niece, who I haven’t seen nearly enough thanks to this year. The little things strengthen the walls of our internal fortress, they inspire the mind towards forward thinking, they take our resolve and construct it into something unbreakable.
The world continues to turn, and we continue to complain about the ‘big’ things, but it’s the little things we can actually grasp that bring our feet back down to earth and give rise to that little glimmer of appreciation we all so desperately need in order to centre ourselves.
I am thankful for the life I have, even if it really could come to an end sooner than others. I appreciate the good achieved and expressed this year, rather than the disappointments and the difficulties. I see what we have, what we’ve earned, what’s been handed to us and how lucky we are, and I hold it close. I refuse to fall to anger and outrage, I refuse to fail to appreciate what life is, how wonderful and beautiful it can be.
We’re meant to experience all things, we’re meant to learn from all things, sometimes even fight for those things. Life is meant to be chaos, and we’re meant to pick up the pieces and treasure every fragment we find. 2020 was meant to be. And from it we’re meant to learn, to find appreciation, to be thankful for what we have. Because to fail to do so is to fail to find humanity within ourselves.
I have never been more appreciative of what I have and more thankful to those around me than I am now. And I’m convinced that feeling is down to the extreme struggles I’ve faced this year, to the fragments I’ve kept close, rather than discard.
No matter what next year brings, no matter what this year took away, we are treasures. To someone, somewhere, we are that ‘little thing’, a symbol of learning and love among a big wide world of overwhelming problems and issues. And when we fail to appreciate those little things, we become something less. We become unreasonable, and angry…
Treasure the fragments, be thankful for them, whatever their shape or form. What we have is what we keep, and we should keep such a thing very close. It has genuine value. Perhaps more than we’ll ever know.
Anyway, thanks for reading the ramblings of some random guy attempting to find meaning at the end of a particularly difficult year.
Much love, and happy new year. We’ve earned it.
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The Unmisunderstood 