Congrats! You Passed the Test of 2020!

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2020 felt like a test. And since we’re here reading this, we all passed!

I keep thinking back to the start of 2020. I remember saying on New Year’s Eve of 2019, “Should we go out, do something fun? Or stay home?”

Someone once told me that what you do the night before the new year sets the “mood” for the year. Maybe there is some truth to that. Maybe not.

We stayed home. I don’t even think we made it to midnight. We were out, exhausted. No snacks, no fancy dinner, no get together with our favorite people. We started our new year slow, steady, and preparing for a year that we knew would be challenging, but in a different way than expected.

Congrats! You Passed the Test of 2020!That’s the theme, right? Prepare for the year, our goals, our plans, our lives. I mean no one was expecting a major change up to our world.

Let’s face it. This year has been tough. 2020 has hurt us all in some way. It’s been painful for so many.

Whether you’ve had support or you did it alone, it’s been a lesson in how we parent, what we believe in, and who we believe in. We saw how strong we were when we were knocked down, to only get back up again.

Our faith has been tested and our relationships. Decisions we had to make…hard decisions. We learned who was in our corner and who wasn’t. We learned that even though racism was still around… racism is still around. We learned new things and adjusted our old thinking.

This seemed like the longest test that anyone has ever taken. We were all unprepared for it.

When I get stressed, I do one of three things: cry, shut-down, or persevere. In the case of 2020, I can honestly say I did all three, almost like a flight, fight, or freeze response. I cried in fear of the unknown. I also cried because I was sleep-deprived. Still am. I shut-down because I was so over Covid. I shut-down because life was crazy. Even through the craziness and the unknown, I persevered. I pushed, I moved through the fear, I made it past the shut-down phase, and I continue to persevere.

Let me rephrase that… we persevered. We pushed, we moved through the fear, we made it past the shut-down phases, and we continue to persevere.

We learned several things along the way. First, we humans are ever-changing beings. We are meant to evolve, adjust, and adapt. Second, we are resilient. Even in the middle of shutting down and getting back up, it shows that we were resilient in that moment, and we will be resilient in the future. Third, we are social beings, introvert or extrovert. Being social regardless teaches us things. Things about people, about life, about ourselves. Last, we learned we can do hard things. 2020 was a hard thing.

Because we can do hard things, we can face 2021 head (despite its rocky beginning). We’ve got this. You’ve got this. Wishing you and yours a happy, healthy, and blessed new year.