[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_style=”outline” style=”round”]This is a personal post, a recap of 2020.
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[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]2020 Has Got to Be The Most Hated Year of All Time
Everyone hates 2020, am I right? It’s the year that made us stay at home and homeschool our kids, it’s the year that made us all work from home too. It’s the year that ripped open and exposed the mess that is our government, with it’s corruption and inhumanity coursing through on every level, on all sides. 2020 is the year that bared the racist breast of America.
2020 seems to be me to be the year that America started rousing a little bit, waking up a smidge. And I liked it.
It’s true that homeschooling my kids was hard. Ok, wait: I take that back; it wasn’t “hard” basically, it was NOT DO-ABLE for me after a certain point. You see, after taking a counseling course last year, I applied to the licensed counseling graduate program here, and was accepted. I started my classes this summer, then took 3 classes in the fall, while working.
“Homeschooling” was my kids and I all sitting down at the table, with all of us in our respective Zoom sessions, only I would need to be following the captions in my classes WHILE I was trying to help Moxie or Mack with their schoolwork. Like, at the same time. I’ll tell you this: 2020 humbled me. I took one huge bite of a cookie – which contained full time graduate studies, working as an private career counselor, this blog (which generates a significant part of my income), family stress and HOME RENOVATION.[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”502817″ img_size=”medium” style=”vc_box_rounded” title=”Before”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”502810″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”right” style=”vc_box_rounded” title=”After”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]No way could I handle all that, and I got to the point in which I was just so very grateful for the blessed, beautiful wonderful teachers of my kids.
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So, Yeah. Humbled.
I don’t think that was a bad thing. I appreciate having my eyes opened to all that exists for my benefit, and I appreciate the feeling of my heart flooding with gratitude to these good teachers, who even managed to teach hula through Zoom:[/vc_column_text][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/6Sr_ZfyPgfc” title=”Moxie Learning Hula via Zoom”][vc_column_text]
By and large, I felt grateful more than anything in 2020.
I was finally able to get people to meet with me via Zoom or FaceTime – where it had been an impossible struggle before, in 2020 it became an obvious reality. Captions also became a reality, and with that, the world became infinitely more accessible for me. In 2020, I have been able to participate in ways that I couldn’t previously, either because I didn’t have childcare, or because I simply couldn’t hear.
I don’t hate that new-found access.
You know what else I don’t hate?
I don’t hate the Black Lives Matter movement, nor do I hate the recognition that has finally – FINALLY!! – hit mainstream that we have some serious work to do in unlearning and healing from this vile illness of racism that has seeped into the marrow of our national flesh.
I do hate the ignorance and “free-dumb” that America is so very full of.
I hate that our healthcare system is the crappiest in the developed world, and I hate that millions of Americans have been brainwashed into thinking that is normal and tolerable.
I hate that people died because of pandemic inaction.
I hate that Trump and his cronies are likely to get away with their criminal actions.
I hate masks because they make it impossible for me to hear, but I love masks because they are one step towards a safer world.
They are an expression of care and consideration.
I Don’t Think 2020 or What 2020 Has Birthed Will be Over Soon
Like I said in this post, I don’t think any of what 2020 brought forth is really going to be over soon.
Nor do I think it should be.
What I mean by that is that everything that happened this year, happened for a reason.
It happened because the world is intrinsically interconnected but refuses to acknowledge it.
It happened because we have enormous disparities between the rich and the poor, we have a profit-based healthcare system and rampant ignorance. We have one of the shittiest educational systems in the world; if not THE shittiest of any nation with wealth.
We have been valuing money and work over all else.
It happened because we do not utilize regenerative farming practices, we haven’t implemented green life or green living practices. Our environment is trashed and we just keep on digging for more oil, make hard plastic to pour laundry detergent from.
Our political system is unbelievably messed up; parties battling for control on a beds of dollars, over the bodies of the most vulnerable.
Who are we? What is this?!
You know as well as I that this is not who or what any of us was born to do or be.
We are more than what we have been, and the Universe knows this, too.
All that 2020 has brought forth – the pandemic, exposed racism, our education system, and more – will push us into these new directions whether we want to go or not, because fundamentally changing who we are and how we live is ultimately going to be the only way we can truly save ourselves and prevent this from happening again.
2020 Brought All Focus to Family
Sitting in this Time Out, with my attention so firmly and squarely on my self, wrapped and whirled around ME and MY KIDS, I was brought back to our collective genesis: we are first ourselves.
Then our family.
Then friends.
Then on and so forth.
If we want to change the world, we are supposed to start with ourselves.
The roots of global change happen on a local level, the ripple is generated from the core, and the core of every human being is our own self, which is exactly who we are now required to spend an inordinate amount of time with.
2020 stripped my own family bare.
Myself, humbled, I turned to my kids and learned to meditate, practice yoga daily and to reach for inner quiet, peace.
The four of us moved closer to existing in harmony as a family. We are more than what we have been.[/vc_column_text][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/KXtFO3UsCyo”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
I Did Not Hate 2020
I think that a lot of us – myself included – have been turning down the volume of the energetic call of life to offer our presence to spaces that don’t even remotely tap into the precious and priceless gifts that each and every one of us have within us.
We are more than what we have been, and the Universe knows this, too.
2020 started to push us into new directions whether we wanted to go or not. In this year, I saw so many of us figuring out how to come into our own worth, learning to be who we really are. Learning this, I think, fundamentally changes who we are, and how we live, and it all involves love and authenticity. It involves honesty, and cultural shifts, education, systems of care, economic justice, rights.
It means being still and reaching in.
This is, I believe, a part of our evolution, it’s becoming more of who we were always supposed to be.
It’s painful, but, like birth, it’s just part of the process.
And that ultimately is how I feel about 2020: that it was a year for bringing about birth pains of a new consciousness. I’m grateful to be alive in this here and now and grateful to be given the opportunity to learn and grow in this with the 3 people most precious to me.
Forward and on! Happy new year[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” images=”502863,502862,502861,502860,502858,502857,502856,502855,502859,502852,502850,502847,502845,502843,502842,502840,502836,502835,502853,502834,502828,502826,502823,502822,502818″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Meriah Nichols is a counselor. Solo mom to 3 (one with Down syndrome, one on the spectrum). Deaf, and neurodiverse herself, she’s a gardening nerd who loves cats, Star Trek, and takes her coffee hot and black.
