WE MADE IT! It's the very end of 2020, folks. The final hours. We're almost there, to the promised land of a new year with vaccines and (eventually) hugs and travel and indoor dining and did I mention hugs? (I really miss hugs.)
But, before we toss the baby of 2020 out with the bathwater, I wanted to take a few minutes to review all the GOOD things that happened in my life this year. I'd encourage you to sit down today or tomorrow and do the same. It's easy to write a year off as terrible, but nothing is ALL bad or ALL good, and it's important to celebrate the good as much as we lament the bad.
So, here goes:
I got married! Sure, we had to move the date, and we ended up with a Zoom wedding in our dining room with only six guests, but it was perfect and now I get to be married to my best friend and the cutest man I've ever known. #win
I got to spend tons of time with my kid! Yeah, at times I wanted to murder her, but we spent WAY more time together this year than we ever have, with everyone in the house all the time. I'm not sure that we accomplished anything, but she's healthy and happy, and that's good enough for me.
I launched a new business! I don't honestly believe I would have started my consulting company if it weren't for the Great Pause. I had more time to think, more time to work, and a greater sense of my own mortality and how fleeting this life is. If this was something I really wanted to do, I needed to get the fuck on the fuck and do it.
I wrote (most of) a book! I'm almost done with it, and that's way farther than I've ever gotten before. It'll be done early this year and out to the public early next year. AND THAT'S AWESOME!
I deepened some important relationships! I am actually emerging from 2020 feeling like I have a better, closer relationship with a handful of really amazing people because we were all intentional about staying connected through the year. MORE intentional than we would have been otherwise.
I saved a bunch of money! Not traveling (typically my biggest annual expense after my mortgage) allowed me to save enough money to make starting my consulting business possible.
And so many more. Just so many wonderful things happened in the midst of everything else. There were business wins and personal wins and yes, a ton of defeats and stress and fear. But without the bad, the good wouldn't be so sweet, right?
Have fun tonight. Be safe. Stay healthy. And send 2020 off in style (whatever that looks like for you. For me, it'll be going to bed at 10 or so after a couple of glasses of the champagne that's left over from my dining-room wedding.)
See you next year!