Dear 2020,
It was a struggle to keep it this brief. Unprecedented, traumatic, roller coaster YOU. Anxiety riddled anticipation of the next drop, and LORD, when you dropped me... Disruptive, life-altering, darkly humorous— you. Your rock-bottom lows made every high feel like a mountain top, a ride in a tiny plane to my next uncharted destination; your highs, a safety net of hope every time. You— questionable, twisted, unpredictable you.
I’d like to sue you. For the tears you’ve collected over all this TIME. For the time you claimed for your own without permission— your gnarled fingers squeezing days, weeks, months out of me. You never let go yet managed to stick in moments I’d wish could last forever. For the pain, the hurt, the death of so much I swore I once knew; all somehow alongside growth, conclusions, new beginnings, and far better mountains to climb. Look at you, being the torturous teacher, because you really cared, because you saw my potential... For the distress? For the anxiety and depression you seemed to poke at on any given day. Dig up, expose, wound me a little differently, then bandage me up each time.
I can’t thank you for whooping my ass. The sucker punches, the new scars to count, the constant dragging? I’ve started to believe you were truly teaching me how to fight— for everything; constantly reminding me that I could lose it all (or lose anyone) any minute. And this is how you leave me. Me, still spinning. You, gloomy as all hell. I write from my car today; the murky sky flush to the browns, grays, weird creams and muddy burgundies of Brooklyn homes setting such a tone... Pitter-pattering and windshield wiping, soundtracking your last day. Are you crying? Are you sad to go? Has this all been twice as long for you? Are you sorry? Were you just doing your job?
If your job was to unveil— to show me all the people, places and things weighing me down, to show me everything I had to let go of in order to fly... If your job was to take my rawest ingredients, grind me up and make something better, stronger, wiser, changed... If your job was to test for the testimony... To incite the deepest, darkest emotions... To be painful in ways that only hindsight can help with some day... To be that tunnel— the one whose end makes light glorious. Then 2020, I say to you, job well done.
