Tomorrow Will Be Better, Bit by Bit
Like so many people, I am eager to kick 2020 to the curb. I am ready to sweep up the shards of broken plans, shattered lives, disrupted dreams and drop them into the dust bin of history. I am so ready to be done with this year that weeks ago, I tore December from my calendar, pinned it next to my 2021 calendar, and threw the rest of 2020 away. Nothing will make me happier than to crumple that last page and toss it like a perfect 3 pointer into the trash.
Still, I am also a student of New Year celebrations, having muddled through them since I was old enough to stay up way past bedtime to usher in the magical thing called the New Year. Over the years, there have been teen parties, First Night fireworks, winter getaways, and quiet celebrations. Each time, as midnight approached, expectations built. The New Year was filled with possibilities. This would be the year — finally, the year — when something magnificent would happen.
Often, something magnificent did happen; rarely, though was it something I had been resolved to do. I would wake on January 1 filled with hope and maybe even determination. I might go for a jog, skip dessert, review Spanish vocabulary, or pick up an age-worn copy of Moby-Dick and read a few pages. January 1 brought the possibility of a healthier, Spanish-fluent, Great-American-Novel-reading me. It was, if for only several hours, a better day.
Just like tomorrow, January 1, 2021, will be a better day than today and nearly every day since we celebrated the arrival of 2020.
Then, it will be January 2, then January 3, and the day after that, and so on. We may keep some of our resolve. Much of it will fall to the wayside. We will cling to some hope and embrace a little disappointment. We will realize that the day after December 31 is much like the day before yesterday and the yesterday before that. We will see that we laded the New Year with the burden of being better, that we will suddenly be thinner, multi-lingual, better read.
So, I remind myself — my impatient, eager self, that there is no magic in January 1.
That’s particularly true tomorrow. Turning the page on 2020 does not get us out of the woods. Tomorrow, coronavirus will continue to run unchecked through our country. We don’t get to toss away our masks and embrace in long-overdue hugs just because it is 2021. When we go to work on January 4, the commute will still be the few steps from one room to another. When we have our first staff meetings of the year, it will be on Zoom or Meet and we will still be reminding someone that they are, in fact, still on mute. We will smile and share stories of quiet Christmases and quieter New Years. Maybe, we will wear the new athletic pants brought by Santa Claus, disguised as an Amazon delivery driver.
Still, tomorrow will be better. It will be better because the worst, maybe, is behind us. It will be better because people are getting Covid vaccinations, and we can see a light at the end of this long, dark tunnel. It will be better because we want it to be. We will, if we work at it, lose a few pounds, give up a bad habit, read more books, learn a new trick, make necessary sacrifices, and continue wearing that damn mask.
Which is to say that the miracles of the New Year are the ones we make. We need to be reminded of that on this New Year’s Eve, particularly. There is no magic, but there is hope. And possibility. And work yet to be done.
We can hope that pitching the pieces of 2020, turning the page to a New Year will make everything different, everything better. It will. Just not all at once. Tomorrow will be better, and the day after that a little more, and the day after that, too. And if we do that work, we will look back on 2021 and say that was the year we were reminded that even after the darkest of years, there was light. We just had to be a little patient.
