How to Be Optimistic About 2021 in the Aftermath of 2020

(Aww, if you think you're sad the party is over now girls, just wait 3 1/2 months!)

We have all been through the wringer this year.  It will undoubtedly go down as the most stressful year in our history.  Pandemic.  Election Year.  Protests.  Wildfires. Hurricanes. Homeschooling.  Depression and anxiety.  Teleworking.  Zoom meetings.  Being separated from family and friends to keep them safe.  Job and/or home losses in record numbers. We're all affected differently and all had our crosses to bear.  It was a year of learning a lot about ourselves and those around us for the good, bad or disappointing.  Then you start seeing memes like this and a little sense of dread may come where laughter should be.

(via Pinterest)

There were memes popping up July 5th saying something like "let's cook Thanksgiving, decorate for Christmas and yell happy new year and get 2020 over with."  While flipping the calendar to a new year usually means a clean slate, that isn't the case in our current situation.  So how do we go into 2021 with a sense of optimism when we got blindsided in March and our world's were never the same?

If there is one thing I've learned, it's that every single person I know has handled the pandemic differently.   What is reckless or dangerous in our eyes is "common sense" or normal to others.  It was quite easy to spiral mentally and emotionally.  We learned that what is best for our family of two is what we are sticking with and are not apologizing for it.  I purposely am not on social media much because it just triggers too much to see people acting a fool or saying things that are inconceivable to me.  I follow my little home décor sites on IG and that's about it.  (Much to the dismay of our wallet.)   I do not want a continuation of 2020 mentally and I will reflect on the lessons that most seriously affected my mental health to try not to get caught in those traps again.  This is the perfect time to sit down and truly reflect and think of how you want to continue or change things that affected you this year.

If you're active on social media at all, you've probably added people over time you rarely talk to, see or worked with years ago.  You probably also have a family member or two whose posts/rants make your blood pressure spike.  You can mute or snooze people easily on most platforms.  As you go into the new year, it might be a good time to re-evaluate the people in your digital neighborhood.  You don't have to block them completely but if you find yourself rolling your eyes or bracing up when you see they've posted, that's your body's way of saying they are bringing unnecessary stress to your life.  That goes for businesses and email too, even ones you signed up for.  If you find yourself not going to these places anymore or never buying from them, unsubscribe or send 'em over to spam so they aren't in your face.  Our digital lives have taken over our actual lives, let's make sure it's content you actually care about or lifts you up.  If that means I have to say goodbye to some of you, then it's been nice having you around and I understand.

Winter is going to hit the food industry particularly hard without outdoor eating options.  If you have a favorite mom and pop pizza place or other restaurant, make sure you continue to get takeout/delivery as much as you can if you want them to stay around.  Same for any local business.  Even the big boy retailers have folded or filed for bankruptcy this year so you can see without that kind of money backing them up, the small business is at even more risk.  This doesn't even have to apply to local businesses in your area.  When we had to cancel our trip to Cape Cod for our anniversary in May, there were several stores I was looking forward to visiting that I bought from online.  Laurel Grove in Sudbury MA is responsible for 6 new finds for our home and they offered free shipping which enticed people to shop.  We also got orders from our second home of Hawaii from places like Aloha Spice Company and Kauai Kookie.  Places that depend on tourism dollars with stringent measures like Hawaii has had to implement need even more help.  Buying online or purchasing gift cards for (hopefully) future use are ways you can help.  It not only makes you feel good to get happy mail from your favorite places but they appreciate it too!

Memories are always good to look back on.  The reason cancelling a vacation or not being able to see important people in your life hurts is because you have memories of how fun doing those things or seeing those people are.  Revisit your favorite memories often.  Look at that camera roll and those videos.   Listen to that playlist that takes you back to a special time.  (Someday by Sugar Ray ALWAYS takes us back to our 1999 trip driving on the Hana Highway.)   We may be limited but we can continue to make memories even if they look a little different.  There is time that many of us might not have slowed down to have with our family members.  When you have to come up with new things to keep you and your family entertained, you have new memories and hobbies waiting to be made!  I know it might feel like you've done all of the things but with a new season upon us, it may just become your favorite.  Oh, stop rolling your eyes summer lovers!  If you're lucky enough to have snow, get the heck outside!!  Go sledding, build a snowman, go snowshoeing, have a snowball fight, make snow ice cream, learn how to ski or go tubing.  Being outside this time of year is good for you in so many ways!  Even just cozying up and enjoying hygge season is memorable.

It can be very easy to 'doom scroll' and get pulled into negativity of the news cycle.  Limit yourself to 15 minutes of that crap and then the rest of the day, purposely seek out good news or genres of videos that make you smile in your downtime.  If you love animals, go to thedodo.com for sweet and funny animal stories.  The Good News Network can give you a dose of good stuff to make your heart smile.   Despite not always feeling like it, there is good news to be found if we choose to seek it.

I know gratitude journaling almost seems to be a ubiquitous term these days with the rise of  'self care.'   Kind of like when I go to the craft stores and see 40,000 items with the term "grateful, thankful, blessed" and want to yak because for me, it's taken the intended meaning out of the words.  We've done this for the past 5 years and I'm not going to lie, some days it feels forced and we don't want to do it.  At the end of every month, we read them to each other and it's always interesting to see if we consider the same things happy or not.  On New Years Eve, we've made it a tradition to re-read the whole year and it does take a while but we remember so many things we forgot about!  After 2020, it could be really easy to consider the whole year a bust but there are many things that have made us happy so I'm thankful (actually thankful not craft store thankful) for the reminder.

Now that we've gotten through nine months of navigating things, we pretty much know what we can and can't...rephrase...should and shouldn't do to keep ourselves and others safe.  That doesn't mean we can't carefully make plans to take advantage of off seasons and off peak hours for some fun.  Look at places you might want to day trip to and plan a mid-week hooky day if possible for minimal crowds.  Look for cabins or homes to rent on lots of land so you can have a change of scenery.  (Make sure you check the state restrictions first or you could be quarantined for two weeks before you're allowed to have fun outside of your abode.)  If you don't feel comfortable doing those things, start saving for the blow out vacation you've put off for years and spend this year planning it.  (Honestly, planning can be half the fun!)  When the time is right, jump on a good deal and enjoy your well planned sabbatical!  

In the beginning of the pandemic, it was almost novel to some degree.  Posts popping up everywhere, including here, about ways you can pass the pandemic time without getting sucked into binge watching the tube.  Color coded homeschooling schedules that were well intentioned were chucked out the door once consistent good weather was in the forecast.  I still stand by that post and it might be time to revisit some of those early activities.  Now is the perfect time to start a puzzle or go through old family photos to put into albums.  It's so easy to get sucked into the day to day and feel like Groundhog Day and meaningless.  I've fallen into the same trap as well so I know how hard it can be to dig out of that mentality.

No one knows what 2021 holds but I hope I can say most of us are going into each month saying "expect the unexpected."  In an outside world of chaos, it's more important than ever to hone your surroundings and expectations based on what you've learned.  Create an environment that makes you feel comforted and start rituals to bring you some peace.  I think the old adage of "life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it" that sometimes makes me want to smack someone when thrown in my face, unfortunately after this year, applies.  Use whatever options you have at your disposal to maintain your sanity without hurting yourself or others.  (If someone gets that reference without having to look it up, high five!)

On with the show.

How do you stay optimistic?

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