LIFE

It has been...a year. It’s hard to remember, but just 365 days ago, our country was in a much, much different place. Even with the vaccine on the horizon, plans and parties were out, the holidays were on hold and the future seemed, at best, uncertain.

And now? While we can’t exactly say things are back to normal, thanks to masks and vaccines (safe and now approved for everyone 5 and over!), life is...looking up?

Of course, we can’t forget the tragic loss of so many lives (740,000 and still counting in the U.S., many of which could have been prevented). Or disregard the extreme toll COVID has taken on the livelihoods and mental health of millions (honestly, at this point, there probably isn’t a single person who hasn’t been affected by the pandemic in some way).

But, all that said, is it too much to hope for hope in 2022?

Welcome to the new, new, new normal. You know, the one after the one where you realized you could slow the hamster wheel of existence without, well, ceasing to exist. And the one after that where we packed our planners, said “see ya” to self-care Sundays and started accepting every single slumber party invite just because, well, we could.

Yeah, that one.

This coming year, we will all get to figure out what happens when life, gulp, happens again. When we all blaze boldly forward, plotting our paths and dreaming big...while still keeping our fingers crossed because most of us aren’t 1000% certain the future doesn’t have another monster truck-sized surprise in store.

In other words, optimism now means swapping utter fear for total uncertainty. Hardly the life upgrade we were all looking for in 2022, but it’s where we are.

Given that fact, here’s the most calming, reassuring, encouraging thing I can tell you: Things are going to happen. Good things. Bad things. Things we can control (like how we choose to treat others) and things we can’t (how the forces of nature, man-made or otherwise, now treat us).

And if there’s one thing we’ve learned this past year, it’s that our sense of security about the world is perilous, fragile and, perhaps scariest of all, fleeting.

But we’ve also learned that we can be resilient. And resourceful. Adaptable, capable and caring. And that by getting on the same page and working together, we can handle seemingly unimaginable problems (like a pandemic).

It’s that spirit that should frame our new, new, new normal: The knowledge that challenges certainly lie ahead, but that we’re able to meet them—and, dare I say, even conquer them.

So no matter what it is you now want to do in the world, be it something big or small, know that in 2022 anything is once again possible. Why do I believe this? Making it through the last year proved that we can overcome just about anything.

Hey, girl! Just wanted to let you know that this story originally ran in our December/January 2022 issue. Want more? Read the print mag for free *today* when you click HERE.

by Karen Bokram | 12/2/2021