58

 

Today I’m 58, and I will love this year.

That’s how I’ve started every one of my birthday blogs, including the one I wrote last year. Who would have known that 2020 was waiting to pounce, that COVID19 was winding up and getting ready to take us down.  For my 57^th year picture, I sat behind my desk, smiling and clueless, ready for another good year. Today, I type this blog in a state of exhaustion. My family had a beautiful holiday season, albeit pain-filled, including a threat of exposure. I’m guessing ours was a lot like everyone’s holiday season.

This year, we’ve all gone through the same time of shared isolation. We’ve seen each other on Zoom, covered our mouths and noses with cloth masks, and continued to use social media like everything was normal. Halfway around the world, friends wrote to me from lockdown, just like ours.

This year, I went to COVID funerals, including my beloved Auntie Molly’s. I went to COVID weddings, including my niece, Selena. I celebrated my Virtual graduation from Antioch University Los Angeles MFA program on Zoom, remotely whooping it up with my fellow Cardinals. My son and his family bought their first house and moved out of ours, all of this done with COVID restrictions.

Time Magazine had a cover, which declared 2020 to be “the worst year ever,” and no one disputed this. Even in wartime, a year so fraught with  violence, moratoriums, and political upheaval has not been equaled.

In each blog, I end with my birthday Psalm. This year, Psalm 58 is as brutal as the past year. It ends, however with a promise for the righteous—we’ll all live through this. Not only live through it, but we’ll conquer.

“Mankind will say, ‘Surely there is a reward for the righteous;

    surely there is a God who judges on earth.’” ~Psalm 58:11

I pray this coming year be filled with hope and love for all of you. Tonight, as I go to bed, I pray the same thing for my own family. 

Janet