The 3 Questions

At the top of a new year, I like to ask three questions:

1) What was best about last year for you?  

My friends and family and Sweet Hubby will always come first when I reflect on that question for myself.  The other highlights of 2021 are the four trips I took, each one a shining jewel in the crown of the year.  First was to Las Vegas to meet with a cousin and some friends.  We mostly stayed in our adjoining suites, talking, laughing, playing games.  After more than a year of no travel, it felt very strange to fly to another state and city, but I'm glad I braved it.  I was relieved to see that people were masked everywhere I looked.

The second trip was to Goshen, IN to receive an award and see my winning play performed.  A highlight of that trip was seeing a concert by Girl Named Tom, three siblings from Goshen who recently won The Voice.  They are talented and beautiful and, I hope, ready for the new trajectory of their lives.

Third was to Marina, CA to be with siblings and our spouses for early Thanksgiving and my sister's birthday.  So nourishing to be together.  It was an especially precious time because my sister-in-law has terminal cancer, so time with her is meaningful and poignant.  And of course her illness reminds me that we are all terminal at some point.  So important to stay connected.

Fourth was that glorious week in Boise filming a series of commercials.  Everything about that event was good and great, and nothing so great as how familially bonded the other actors and I became.  (Spell Check is telling me that familially isn't a word, but it should be, so I'm keeping it.)

2) What was hardest about last year?

For me, it has definitely been my ongoing anguish, anger, disbelief, and disgust with this new and worsened version Republican Party and its most fervent followers.  All that outrage is exhausting and unhealthy, so I won't feed the beast right now.  But really, how is it possible that it has come to this, with continued deterioration of truth, civic responsibility, kindness, critical thinking?

I also lost three friends this year, and feel diminished by their absence.

3) What would you like next year to be like?

This question is the hardest to answer this year.  Normally I greet a new year with an expansive feeling of promise and possibility, renewed energy, bright visions.  This year, however, I find I look at the coming year not so much with trepidation as with an absence of expectation.  I find a cheery "Happy New Year" catches in my throat.  I don't know that it's going to be a good year.  The political landscape and COVID have dimmed the light of my enthusiasm.  

Of course, we never know how any year is going to unfold.  We didn't know Obama could be President until he was elected.  We didn't know that our lives were going to change in every way and forever because of COVID until it arrived.  When 2021 began, I didn't know I was going to take any of those wonderful trips.  There are always surprises, happy and terrifying both, so I'm talking more about my own approach to the year than to anything I think might happen or not happen.  I don't assume that COVID is going to stop being a factor in our lives.  And I don't assume that our leaders will become wiser or more honest.

In answer to Question #3, if I could wish anything into being, it would be that COVID simply dies off and all politicians start to tell the truth.  Since I can't to anything about any of that, to look at what I would like to see happen that I can actually fuel myself, my answer is what it usually is.  This year I want to write more (I can definitely make that happen) and write better (not sure how much this is within my power, but it's a worthy goal).  I want to be a better friend to my friends, and stay in good shape physically.  And I want to enjoy myself as fully as possible because what's the point of this precious, temporary life if we don't enjoy it?