A hard year

For the past 8 years now, I’ve written a blog post reflecting on the past year. This year it took me until the end of January to realize I hadn’t done it.

It’s felt impossible to write about this year. It feels like we’ve collectively exhausted all words—what more can possibly be said about these last couple of years? Last year I wrote about how a lot of 2020 was recognizing that fear and grief don’t negate gratitude or joy. I feel the same way today that I felt then, but I also couldn’t have imagined how much more relentless 2021 might be with its cruelty. I can sort through for the good pieces (of which there are many!) and try to paint 2021 as a time of growth and optimism and moments of joy brightening difficult circumstances. Or I can be honest and admit there’s been quite a bit of anger and frustration amidst that gratitude. That it has been infuriating to spend part of my time in a state that has barely acknowledged that a pandemic ever existed. That it has been horrifying and astonishing to watch as guidelines and suggestions gradually, and then entirely, began to disregard the safety of immunocompromised people who don’t have the luxury of deciding to be “vaxxed and done.” That witnessing the way leadership in my hometown and in the faith communities I grew up in have handled this has caused me shame and embarrassment. For all the terrible things this pandemic has caused, it has at least done something useful in revealing to us with total clarity which people are considerate and caring of others and which people care only about themselves. (And to be clear, this is not a political statement or about differing options on vaccines—people of either opinion about vaccines can be caring and considerate of others. I’m talking about the type of person who publicly tells their Facebook friends to buy a fake PCR test so they can get on a plane when they know they are sick with Covid—these are the people we now know with certainty care only about themselves.) How do you explain to someone that they should care about other people? I’ve had to remind myself again and again this year, you can’t. You can’t make people care about others. You just can’t. 

2021 was a lot of waiting. Waiting for something to change, waiting for the latest wave to pass, waiting for a break, waiting in hospital waiting rooms, waiting for test results, waiting for doctors to call. It was glimmers of hope and vaccine appointments that felt like terror and relief at the same time. It was getting to hug Sam and Sophie for the first time in over a year at the crawfish boil Michael had for me and the dusty pink of Harry’s Japanese magnolia tree when I finally found the perfect one. The first time I ate in a restaurant in over a year at that dim sum place in Houston. The house floats during Mardi Gras that felt as magical to me as any parade. Hockey games and Michael winning the crawfish eating competition. A few weeks of milongas and remembering how to dance and doing circus tricks and buying an international plane ticket and dipping my toes anxiously into something like normalcy. The beach trip with my family that felt like an unimaginable gift after more than a year of fear. 

And then. And then it was the phone call from my mom that morning in Austin when she wouldn’t say the word “cancer,” but I knew. A couple of days later, the vet called to tell me that Pudgy had cancer, too. It was the terror and shock in the waiting room as we waited for the results of the CT scan. Being horrified of the Delta variant during the first round of her chemo and the Omicron variant during the second round. There was my grandmother’s sudden sickness and her death three weeks later, then Pudgy dying later that same day. 

But it wasn’t all a before and after. There was joy mixed in with the grief and anger. There was getting to pick Elijah up from the airport after almost 2 years of not seeing each other. There were the last few hours with Pudge, and Michael and I holding him that night on the floor as we waited for the vet. There was a hurricane evacuation and a night spent in the animal shelter, an Amtrak trip to Jackson, so many paintings of Pudge, and the delight his bucket list brought us. There was Chewie comforting us afterward and always making us laugh. My birthday petting zoo from Michael, and the last time I spoke to my grandmother on the phone when I stepped away from it. The last meal at my dad’s parents’ house before we sold it, and then the hours I spent rescuing the things I didn’t want sold at their estate sale. (There was the battle I had with the woman who tried to buy Maw’s yard-art hens. Don’t worry. I won.). There were chocolate croissants on Saturdays and the discovery that Whole Foods sells Levain Bakery cookies and then the doctor telling me that actually I should avoid gluten. There was oral surgery and not being able to eat solid food for two weeks. There were 6 different international trips canceled but an appalling number of hours planning hypothetical trips that still might happen. There were 82 books read (55 physical and 27 audio) that helped take me somewhere else when I felt trapped in monotony, dozens of letters written, a million emails and zoom calls with students who are just as burnt out as I am, Pudge and Chewie in their hoodies for Christmas photos, the relief of getting to work remotely, optimistic and kind doctors, boosters, and a Christmas together. 

There is so much to be thankful for and so, so much hope. And even though the hope feels delicate, it's strong enough to keep pulling us forward.