Our Lives are Forever Changed, We Will Never be the Same

Every year, around the winter holidays, I receive a beautiful holiday letter from a childhood friend, who now lives across the country.  She fills her recipients in on the big events of the year and how her sons are doing, both now grown and away from home.  This year the letter, as always, summed up the year.  It was the closing lines that really brought me to tears and brought me back to read and share, many times, since the first read.  I would like to share them with you, and allow my friend to remain nameless as I hate privacy invasion, but if she reads this, I encourage her to take the credit, because I found it very impactful and also very helpful.

The letter ended with these words “I suspect that many of us feel a bit cheated by the virus – missing a year of freedoms we all cherish is not a small thing.  This is particularly so since I doubt any of us are the same people we were a year ago, and neither are the people whom we love.  But what can we do except stand up tall, square our shoulders and look forward with curious eyes and hearts?  As I write these words I know that it’s not that simple for any of us, but the alternative is sinking into the life we’ve lived this past year.  I hope we all find the courage and energy to move past the memories of these past months into feeling enthusiastically alive and joyful”.

When I read the line that includes “neither are the people whom we love” it really hit a heart string.  In doing that, though, it made me even more sensitive to my own loved ones.  I am sharing this with the hope that we can all open up our hearts just a little more, and realize that everyone is handling this pandemic mode differently and I am talking way beyond masks and hand sanitizer!

Early on, last spring, the word ADAPTATION kept coming to me.  It isn’t used as much in the media as the word UNPRECEDENTED, but I think it is way more important.  Most of us have done a bang up job of adapting.  Now let us open our hearts just a bit more, and look forward to soon “feeling enthusiastically alive and joyful”.