It’s January again.

2020 is over, and we’re on to 2021; but it doesn’t seem to be bringing a feeling of newness with it. Rather, it feels like a continuation of the exhaustion that last year was building.

2020 is over; but so many of the things that made it so hard haven’t disappeared.

Can I tell you something? This kinda makes me mad.

I wanted all of the bad to be over with at midnight, January 1, 2021.

I wanted a fresh, new year chock full of good things right off.

Instead, the coronavirus is still here. There is death due to covid-19 and so many other causes, known and unknown. There is hate and upheaval and fear and division.

And I’m so tired.

Physically.

Emotionally.

I’m tired.

I bet I’m not alone.

I bet you’re tired, too.

So what do we do?

That’s the question, isn’t it? What do we do?

Or maybe the question should be, what can we do?

What we think we should do and what we’re actually able to do probably looks very different — especially if you’re dealing with physical or emotional limitations, which I think so many of us are at this point.

We take care of ourselves.

We wash our hands, take our vitamins, get enough sleep, limit the doomscrolling, and get our exercise.

We count the things we are grateful for every single day. Even on the worst of days, there is always something to be thankful for.

We hold space for grief. It’s just as important to list the things that we are grieving as it is the things that we are thankful for. Stuffing down the grief is unhealthy. There has been so much and we must hold space for it and we must grieve.

We spend time with our community. As Donne said, “No man is an island.” While community looks so very different in this time of plague, it’s still necessary. How has your community pivoted? How is it healthy? How can it be improved?

We take time for quiet. We drink coffee or tea. We read. We pray.

We listen to music. We sing. We dance. We make music.

We take care of each other.

We wash our hands and wear our masks. We socially distance and we quarantine if we have to. We help our neighbors. Do they need food? Do they need rent money? Does the food bank need money or food?

We make art, music, stories, poetry. We spread love and not hate.

We create community.

We listen to each other.

We believe each other.

We use our voices for good.

Will this change anything?

I don’t know. Certainly not overnight.

It might.

What if we were all focused on caring about each other and taking care of each other?

What would your neighborhood look like? Your city?

It would be like the stories we heard of neighbors bringing their elderly neighbors groceries. The stories of people getting out on their balconies and singing together in the evenings. The stories of people doing socially distanced workouts together. Musicians livestreaming concerts from their living rooms. Authors reading aloud from their books night after night. Shakespeare’s sonnets read by a famous actor. Other actors reading children’s books aloud.

It’s not going to make all of the hard, horrible things go away.

It’s not going to change the fact that I’ve had breast cancer and that I’m in a chemically-induced menopause because of treatment. The hot flashes and sleep disruption aren’t going away any time soon.

It’s not going to make covid-19 go away.

It’s not going to bring anyone back.

It’s not going to make all of the upheaval in the natural world go away.

And it’s not going to make all of the political divisiveness go away.

Not right away, anyway.

But if we’re focused on taking care of each other, on loving each other (because isn’t that what taking care of each other is?), we’re focused on helping and loving, not hating and division. We’re focused on caring.

It sounds backwards and upside down. It does.

Isn’t it safer, better, for me to take care of just me?

No.

No, it’s not.

Granted, when we travel by airplane, the flight attendant always says to put your own oxygen mask on first before you help anyone else. The same holds true here. We take care of ourselves so we can take care of others. “You can’t pour from an empty jar,” the saying goes.

So I take time to relax, drink tea, read good books, listen to good music, and pray. I make sure to eat on time so I don’t get hangry. I go to bed earlier than I used to in order to make up for all the sleep I lose at night thanks to hot flashes. I ration my energy.

How does this help others?

Well, nobody likes a hangry Chalaina, and a hangry Chalaina doesn’t like anybody, really.

When I get a lot of alone time, to be able to focus on a book or music and/or prayer, I feel more rested and focused and at peace in myself. If I’m around people too much and I don’t get enough solitary time, my temper is shorter and I’m more stressed.

Getting good rest at night, if at all possible, helps me have a better mood the next day and lessens the chance of a nasty headache. It’s easier to be patient when I’m well-rested and I don’t have a headache.

I don’t know what this year will hold.

Part of me is kind of afraid of all the possibilities. I think it’s okay to admit that.

I can’t say that I’m really excited about any possibilities this year. I feel like I should be. But I’m not. And I think it’s okay to admit that, too.

In the meantime, I’ll be here, reading and drinking all the tea and fanning my face when the hot flashes hit.

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thine friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

John Donne

Here are my musings from January 2020.

And my new year’s musings from January 2019.