The Six Word Story of 2021

“I just make it my business to get along with people so I can have fun. It’s that simple.“

– Betty White
(1922-2021)

Last year I did my best to sum up 2020 in one Six Word Story. The reason for this is always to reflect, release and prepare–be it for the next year, next season or next moment–in the fastest way possible. Call it micro-journaling if you will. Tons of data proves the mental, emotional and even physical benefits of journaling, but who has the time?

Today, in the first post of 2022, I continue that new tradition. Rather than the three personal reflections, I endeavor to distill my 2021 down to its essence.

What I found was that, to me, 2021 was perhaps an even more complex year than 2020. I went into 2021 with such a hope, and I’m already known for my hopefulness. What I, and I hazard to say “we,” found was not nearly as simple as it felt when the ball rose back up in an empty Time Square. Boy, that was eerie. But many of us on a very emotional Zoom echoed, well, at least it’s over.

Which brings me to the six words that honestly hurt my heart when I found them.

“Over” is a Moving Goal Poast.

2021 made clear that the pain of 2020 was not over, even if we wished it to be. The overcoming of 2020–re-emerging from COVID-19, children returning to school, in-person work, restaurants filling up, sporting events being held–did not play out as hoped. But it did play out.

For some, it was too slow. For others it was too fast. Others continued to maintain that “it” never should have needed to happen. Still others were facing an unheard of level of exhaustion and burn out because for them “it” had really never stopped.

But still a level of normalcy returned to most American homes, even if it was colored by a continued and increasingly personal level of precaution. And the individual aspect of that precaution continued to divide us. But, hey, movies came back–and I saw some!

Then Omicron.

And here we are. 2022. “Over” has not yet happened as a culture. But perhaps “Over” is starting to on a personal level.

In mental health, addiction and behavioral recovery there is a time in the healing process when a line is drawn. That ill, addicted, out of control being is the person I was, but now I’m working toward being a new, better person. That person does not forget who they were and they definitely don’t forget the skills they learned in becoming a better person; it all becomes integrated into the new, more functional adaptive self. We don’t just reject old habits and choices, we make better ones.

Over can sometimes start with acceptance that “it,” whatever “it” is, may never be truly over, but that we have the power to adapt and move past it.

2021 required much adaptation. Here’s to a 2022 where that adaptation becomes acceptance, and that acceptance moves from the individual and echoes throughout a new and improved culture.