This year is finally drawing to a close and most people are happy to see it go. A few people that I’ve talked with refer to 2020 at the “lost year.” Of course the year wasn’t really “lost,” but when the people who lived through it look back at the timelines of their personal lives, many of them will find a gap where 2020 should be.
So when you look back at 2020, what do you think you’ll remember most about it? The pandemic has lowered our expectations in many ways, making us more appreciative of things we used to take for granted. It doesn’t take much to make a day feel like a special one…. even running an errand can feel like an exciting expedition. For us it’s like, “we went to Costco and got curbside pickup from the Mexican restaurant” — it was awesome.
A lot of us are thinking, hey, when are we going to get back to normal? I think the answer to that is maybe never — maybe we should just not think about going back, but go forward and define a new normal.
In the early 70s I spent some time in China and it was a kind of depressing place. Chairman Mao was still in charge and everything was just kind of dull — about the only bight colors you saw were red signs spouting one of Chairman Mao’s sayings. Even the clothing everyone wore was grey or brown… occasionally you saw a small child dressed in a bright color, but not often. When I left mainland China and crossed the border into Hong Kong, everything was vibrant and colorful. It was like stepping out of a black and white movie into one in technicolor. It reminded me of the Wizard of Oz, when the tornado swept Dorothy out of black and white Kansas into the colorful world of Oz.
So even though this past year has been “black and white,” maybe after this gray year, we might see the times to come in technicolor. Goodbye 2020 — Happy 2021.
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