Can I Open My Eyes Yet?

When can I open my eyes?

I’m not a fan of scary movies, or gory ones, or really any kind of violence so I’m the friend sitting next to you at the movies (remember going to the movies?) with my hands over my ears and my eyes squeezed shut, asking you ‘Can I open my eyes yet’? That’s pretty much how 2020 has been for me. So much fell apart, the world, my house, and me. Is it over yet? Can I open my eyes? Can I exhale?

What is the one word you would use to describe 2020? The Washington Post posed that question and each of the published answers felt profoundly true for me. For as many years as I’ve been writing the CLD I’ve chosen a word for the coming rather than the past year. I haven’t given much thought to the coming year. I’m trying to keep my expectations low. As for a word for 2020, how about crushing?

No one needs me to review the disaster that is COVID_19, the reasons we’re still talking about the election, the wildfires, the numerous and essential protests in the name of the Black Lives Matter movement, or the shambles of our economy. Whether or not you’ve been working, life has changed, and mostly for the worse. I wonder if when we’re ready to go back to the world, what we’ll find.

What will normal look like?

Will my favorite restaurants be there? Will I ever go to the movies again, or will I continue watching from home, on a tiny screen?  While we’ve been home the world out there has been crumbling, and it’s hard to predict what will remain. In my mind in I picture the rubble of post-WWII London, but there’s no rubble, just block after block of boarded-up businesses.

Entropy and destruction

As the world fell apart, so did my own small world continue to deteriorate. I actually worked for a total of six-months in 2020. The $600 supplement to my weekly unemployment checks helped March through August, then I got to go back to work, for a few more months, until I rejoined the unemployed in mid-November. 

I remind myself over and over that I am fortunate. I have a roof over my head (a roof that ended up being leaky and needing replacement. A warm house (after having to replace my furnace) clean, running water (including hot water after replacing my hot-water-heater). And food in my fridge, the fridge that no longer dispenses ice (poor me) and a freezer that accumulates a 1/2″ thick sheet of ice every few days, that if I forget to remove will leak water all over my floor to remind me. 

My body has also begun to show signs of wear (and age). In an effort to stave off multiple medical issues I managed to lose about fifty pounds, which did improve my overall health. And yet, it turns out I have an arthritic shoulder that requires physical therapy, some groovy resistance exercises, and a lot of ibuprofen. In October I got a two-day stay at the lovely St. Lukes hotel hospital, and also a November office visit to have a small skin cancer removed from my cheek. Complain, complain, complain…

Though it’s been an expensive, exhausting, and painful year there were some bright spots, both at home and out there. 

Reason to hope

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the Presidential election. There is now a vaccine for COVID-19. I got to spend a lot of time with my soon to be grown and gone daughter. There was time to read some good books, watch some good movies and shows, and my house is clean most of the time. I wrote more in 2020 than I have in a few years. A new car replaced my old one, and I still have a job to return to (tomorrow).

What I’ve learned in my almost 63 years on this earth is that no matter what I think, feel, or believe, time will march on. 2020 has given way to 2021, but I don’t want to put too much pressure on the turn of a calendar page. We have a long way to go to get to normal, and I’m pretty sure what normal looks like, even a year from now will be quite different from what normal looked like a year ago.

The beginning of 2021 is sure to offer more madness, and I fear violence… Slowly things will get better. I’m sure of that. More people will get vaccinated, my shoulder will improve, I’ll keep repairing my house, but it will take much longer for us to fix the climate, systemic racism, and many of our social ills. Four years ago I predicted it would take us twenty years to recover from the current administration, and I stand by that. The scary things won’t just go away because it’s a new year, so please, someone let me know when can I open my eyes?