Dear 2021,

In the New Year, never forget to thank to your past years because they enabled you to reach today! Without the stairs of the past, you cannot arrive at the future!

― Mehmet Murat ildan

Gosh, I’m almost certainly sure I’m going blind from all the screens. I keep wanting to say it is your fault. Is it?

I’m sorry – where are my manners?

Dear 2021,

I hope you’re well and the packing is going great. You have but mere hours before you turn into yet another history chapter. Unlike your predecessor, you weren’t cruel or a fan of surprises but you were clever and cunning. This has been quite the rollercoaster of a year and well, to be honest – I’m not going to blame you for it. I was rather harsh towards 2020 now that I think about i,t and I feel terrible about it.

You see, as humans, we have this innate proclivity to stay optimistic and that is great, until it’s not. There are plenty of quotes on how every second is a new beginning, how it’s okay to mess up because you can try again, how failure is not failure, per se but a stepping stone and well, you get the idea. We sugarcoat the truth more often than not, to make it easier to deal with but we believe the sweetened truth all the same. A lot of us expected you to be kinder, more human than 2020 and you were, just… not enough.

Inadequacy is something we all struggle with. It feels like nothing we do is ever good enough and this heat of inadequacy that plagues our lives? It burns like no other. All through this year, we strived to bring back any semblance of what we believed was normalcy but all that happened was some mutation and a certain something going on tour with new names and faces. And this failure (or stepping stone) at not being able to get rid of this tiny being – it’s maddening. Because it’s not fair.

But life isn’t fair. And we’re grateful you’ve played host to that particular lesson. I said it to 2020 and I’ll say it to you now.

…our united opposition against this virus shows us the true nature of human beings; we have never before given up in the face of a crisis and continue to persevere till our goals are met. Our history is littered with stories of courage and cowardice, wars and bloodshed, new beginnings and glorious endings, and yet, here we are. This alone is testimony to the fact that we will endure. We will eventually overcome this whether you like it or not. This is not a threat, it’s a mere promise, a statement of our goodwill.

Don’t get me wrong. We absolutely appreciate the realisation you’ve shoved down our beings, the beauty of life you’ve exhibited and the light you’ve shed on the extinguished but now flickering goodness every man possesses. We appreciate it more than you know and while our elephantine egos might prevent you from knowing this, we do owe you so much, for a lifetime of lessons you’ve etched onto us. But now, it really is time for you to leave and take it all back. We have learned our lessons and will no longer continue to ignore the pleas of mother nature or lose ourselves in ridiculous worlds of wealth and beauty.

- Dear 2020

I can’t blame you when we didn’t stick to our own promises. It’s a complex world out there, friend and I don’t expect you, to be able to live up to the expectations of 7.9 billion unique individuals. Like time, you’re wise and an interesting entity to converse with but we’re humans – we’re more susceptible to folly than you are.

I’m sorry, I’ve been rambling. What I wanted to say was this, it’s okay. You probably tried your best as did mankind. You were there in the background every second of the day. You helped us get over past mistakes and propelled us forward. It’s okay to try your best and fail. Like my giddy optimistic self would say, “we can always try again next time” – except we won’t ever be working with you again.

Forgiveness is this wonderfully marvellous human thing, I don’t know if you’ve ever forgiven or been forgiven by someone but I need you to know it’s the closest thing to pure freedom, any of us can ever experience. I’ve been writing, thinking and observing forgiveness for the past month and it’s been a beautiful experience and I want it to be the last thing you feel before you leave.

Not hatred or regret or guilt but forgiveness.

True forgiveness is when you can say, “Thank you for that experience.”

― Oprah Winfrey

So, thank you 2021. It was a difficult ride but we’ve grown and gotten through it, learning lessons and making memories in the process. And I think that’s something to be grateful for,

You were a bad year for many of us but it wasn’t your fault. It’s like putting a stained cloth into clean water and the water ending up stained. We were already on a bumpy journey, albeit not the best one when you came along. You were brave enough to walk with us and now you’ve reached your end. And like most of us, you have the story of a lifetime.

Soar high and let go, 2021. Let acceptance fuel your flight.

Love, an earthling

Hope

Smiles from the threshold of the year to come,

Whispering ‘it will be happier’…”

― Alfred Lord Tennyson

Thoughtfully yours, D

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Originally published on Random Specific Thoughts (my blog).