A whole bunch of buzzwords became part of our daily language in 2020. 😷Mask up. Quarantine. Contact tracing. ➕Positivity rates. Social ⏪⏩distancing. Contactless delivery. 🔒Lockdown. Self-isolation. Face covering. Face shields. N95. Essential workers. Asymptomatic. Pre-symptomatic. Community spread. 🏠Shelter in place. Super-spreader. Work from home. Pivot. 💻Virtual school. Coronavirus. COVID-19. Zoom. I have a feeling that those words are here to stay.
I follow an idea revolving around one word every new year. The basic premise is simple. Rather than listing resolutions that will probably be 😉forgotten by February, choose one word to carry you through the year. I like this way of thinking better than setting goals that I may not reach or lifestyle changes I may not maintain. I choose words that bring ✨positivity and 🔮clarity. Words that can bring me back when I stray. I’ve used one particular word a few different years- PRESENT. For me, it was a reminder to be present in all parts of my life.🙌
When I thought about the word I wanted to choose for 2021, it was easy. My word is 💟LOVE. That’s a pretty big word with a whole lot of implications. I’m thinking of it in simpler terms, though. For me, 💟love means accepting people- all of them, not just the ones who look and sound like me. 💟Love finds something beautiful, even in the ugly moments. 💟Love shows forgiveness. 💟Love brings hope for today and tomorrow. 💟Love is grateful- even in difficult times.
I don’t think people 💟love a lot lately. I believe we’re preoccupied with things being different. 🙋I’m guilty, too. I’ve overused the word “unprecedented.” I’ve 😬complained. Here’s where I see the problem. We want our 🌎world to be what we knew. We were comfortable even if we were uncomfortable because we knew what to expect.💥 For the past several months, we’ve just been uncomfortable. Life became full of unknowns rather quickly- and they keep on coming. We’re looking for familiar- searching behind every 🚪door and around every corner for it. That’s where we think we’ll find the love. Stop looking for 💟love in the comfortable.
I don’t need to tell you this, but normal isn’t here. 😕Let’s even go one step further and admit that normal isn’t going to show up any time soon. This- all of this- is our story now. The good.✔ The bad.✔ The worse-than-we-could-have-imagined.✔ The downright shocking.✔ The exhausting.✔ All of it. The 💟love is still in there. That’s where you’ll find it- in all of the messiness.
This is our story, and it’s time we just own it.🎉These are the tales we’ll tell our grandchildren. These are the moments that we will talk about for the rest of our lives, which I hope will be long and beautiful. We have to stop wasting precious ⏳time searching for what was normal- that desire for the comfortable. We have to embrace the changes. We have to find the 💟love again- even in the unfamiliar.💯
What if…love is the only word we need? For all of the things that I think I know, there are a million more that I’m still 💡learning. We need to keep learning. To accept the things we cannot change. To get comfortable with the uncomfortable. And, we need to love the moments we’re given.💟
sharing the stairs 