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Why this morning isn’t the New Year’s day nirvana I had wanted it to be
Like many others, we went to bed last night expecting today to be different from those that came before it, in the year to be forgotten. There’s so much we wished to be changed by dawn. I desperately wanted to open the New York Times app on my phone upon waking up and not have to read headlines about pandemic deaths, vaccine shortages, Georgia runoffs, or electoral college drama. And even though we inattentively watched the new year arrive in other parts of the world before ours, somehow, we kept telling ourselves when the stroke of midnight happens here, we’ll be in a better place.
It was a stressful and exciting twelve months for our family even when COVID related aspects are taken out of the mix. At this time last year, we were celebrating my new job in Madison, Wisconsin. It involved preparing to move the three of us and our pups, house hunting, and finding a new school, all while giddy from our recent engagement during an annual winter holiday outing to Chicago. Toss into the mix the passing of my wife’s grandmother this fall, and you can see why it’s been an emotional roller coaster.
Everything was looking up even though our to-do list consisted of those once-in-a-lifetime stressors you wouldn’t dare pile on top of…
