Dear 2021,

Happy New Year, 2021!

We’ve been waiting 12 long months to say hello to you, but now you are here, and I know that I’m glad to see you. You have no idea how challenging it was to deal with your older sibling—2020—last year. What a trauma! That’s what we get for letting 2020 take charge while we rolled over and went back to sleep.

Maybe the best thing about 2020 was that it/he/she got lots of attention. How could anyone miss the political brawls—fire storms—busier-than-usual hurricane season—tornadoes and record-breaking floods?

You chuckle? Well…it wasn’t fun while we lived through it. And that doesn’t even touch the shootings and killings (often by police) of unarmed people. Of course, people were wide awake by then, and they showed their mettle with demonstrations and protests and eloquent calls for action and real, lasting change in our country.

Our eyelids peeled back, and we—not all of us…that would be too much to hope for—stood up and shouted.

Of course, shouting while wearing a mask and social distancing was challenging, too, because—yep—a worldwide pandemic blasted us off of our feet. Not in 100 years has a year presided over such a pandemic. When we finally showed 2020 the door, almost 350,000 Americans had died from COVID-19. By the time you landed, 2021, we were over that number with millions infected and/or hospitalized in our country.

You can see why we were eager to usher 2020 out the back door and into history.

And, now, the pressure is on. We’re counting on you, 2021, to pull us out of this mess. I can tell you that you have one important thing on your side. What’s that? you ask. Well—many of us are wide awake now. We’re more awake than we’ve been in years, and we’re ready to pull out all the stops to do our part. We’re with you, 2021, and we know you’re with us, too.

Let’s get this thing started…..