Happy Wednesday,

The year is coming to a close and I find myself in a reflective mood.  Below is my open letter to 2020.

Dear 2020,

I have so many feelings right now as you come to a close.  Scratch that.  I have so many conflicting feelings that I’m still sorting out.  I wonder who you have shaped me to become.

• I have never cherished health and loved ones as much as I do now.  Thank you for that.
• I feel blessed I had another year with my family.  My daughters are growing up, and I’m so happy to see their imaginations are still wild and free.  My wife is closer to normal.  These women are my sunshine, and you solidified that for me this year.
• I feel blessed, because in the grand scheme of things, I’ve been fortunate enough to not have my entire life destroyed by a pandemic.
• I feel guilty that somehow I have a life that was inconvenienced by COVID while others live a life that became broken.  I’m not more special than the people whose lives were destroyed.
• I feel angry.  You brought health problems to my wife and those are months I lost and won’t ever get back.  I’m still not over that or the worry she might never fully get to 100% 
• I can’t decide if I’m proud or disappointed about work this year.  There is pride in great work and there is pride in sometimes just managing to keep moving forward through the challenges even when the result isn’t perfect.  At the same time, I sometimes feel like a failure because I didn’t hit the goals I set for myself.
• I feel exhausted.  At the end of 2019 I said, “There is no way that 2020 could be crazier.” #wrong.  There were more obstacles than I could count  I’m tired of it, all of it, and pray I can gain energy back. 
• I don’t know if I’m better at forgiving myself and giving myself grace, but you gave me more practice than I’ve ever had.  One day that will turn into something.
• I feel stronger, because you didn’t break me.  The pandemic didn’t break me.  My wife in the hospital, while I tried to balance taking care of her, loving my girls, and doing work didn’t break me.  The constant obstacles at work didn’t break me.  The exhaustion didn’t break me.  Feeling disconnected from others didn’t break me.  I am bruised, not broken.  I was weak and continually fell short.  I embraced the fact that I’m human, and am coming out of this loving others harder than I have before.
• Even though I feel stronger, I’m still not at peace.  The strength came at a great cost, and one that I didn’t pay as much as others.  I still don’t know how to feel about all of this.
• I feel loved by so many people, and I can’t be thankful enough for that.
• You were so many things that I can’t really figure out what you were and how to feel about you yet.  I only hope I take whatever I learned from you into a 2021 filled with new possibilities.

Those are some of the thoughts that continue to swim around in my head.  Some of yours might be similar and some of them might be radically different.  Whatever you are feeling is okay.

The challenge:  If you haven’t taken the time, take a few moments to reflect on 2020 and the lessons and emotions it gave to you this year.  How will these shape you moving forward?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry