I have never experienced a holiday season where people are more eager for the new year than anything else. If there’s one thing people can agree on this year, it’s that they cannot wait for 2020 to end. Although the global pandemic cannot vanish with the midnight mark of 2021, it’s easy to hope that it would.
2021 is going to bring a significant change, to say the least, with the introduction of the vaccine and a new administration in the White House (which will hopefully slow the spread of the coronavirus). Of course, there is also negative news, like the resurgence of (a new strain of) COVID that is 70% more contagious, but let’s pretend we never heard about that for now…
2020 was an extremely difficult year for everyone, but its effect was not equal for all. Minorities and lower-income households were affected the most. Long term plans, goals, and small businesses were destroyed.
2020 was a year that I looked forward to for the past five years of my life as it marked a pivotal turning point in my life: the transition from high school to college. COVID-19 disrupted most of that process, essentially disrupting the second half of my senior year of high school and making the first semester of my freshman year quite different than I had expected it to be.
However, the year taught me to be grateful that those were my main complaints.
In fact, 2020 taught us lessons. One of them being that the Face ID function on the iPhone is no longer useful. Another is that social interaction is something we often take and have taken in the past, for granted, as we did not realize how much humans crave contact. Through it all, though, we learned that society is resilient as we use technology to suffice for almost anything. We can find the humanity within the darkness, as communities across the country are giving back to first responders and those who have been affected financially.
Considering all that 2020 has put us through, it is not surprising that everyone is eager to be done with this year, and I, like millions around the world, cannot wait for all that 2021 will bring. I look forward to welcoming the new year with high hopes for our community of humankind to achieve long-forgotten normalcy.