My Own Story of 2020

“We tell ourselves stories in order to live” my favorite author Joan Didion often reminds me. As I am putting words on paper for the final letter of 2020 I am thinking about the story I want to tell. 

And what a better day to tell it, on December 25th. 

It matches the non-traditional clothes of grief. 

The rebellious acts of life after it. 

We often think about religion as traditional. 

But I don’t think it is. 

Religion has always been a beautiful rebellious act. 

When we didn’t have science to explore the world, religion told us unprecedented stories. 

It told us stories in order to live, in order to understand ourselves and the world around us. Bold stories. Immersed in supernatural events and unlikely heroes. 

Whatever your religion is. 

Whatever stories your beliefs about our existence tell you. 

Remind yourself to write an unconventional, supernatural story about your life in 2020.

It was kind of supernatural wasn’t it? 

If someone told you a year ago what was about to happen you wouldn’t have believed it. When the beginning of the pandemic was here, I wrote a letter about how it all felt so familiar to the stuckness tragedy brings forth in our lives. 

How we, the bereaved of the world already knew the insides of the quarantine. 

We knew what it felt like to be stuck between the two worlds. 

The before and the after. Where the Waiting Room lives. 

And just like that, the whole world got a taste of the room we have spent such long periods of time in. 

For a moment, we felt that others would know what it was like to be in limbo. 

Waiting indefinitely. 

It didn’t mean we were less lonely and unseen, it just meant that this hidden world we have been in since our loss, could be seen by others now too. 

And that to me has always been a gift from this year. 

To have a kind of knowing of each other’s hidden worlds of loneliness, is the first step towards healing which can only take place when someone else understands our pain because of their own. 

The story I tell about this Holiday Season and this last year is one of unity. 

One of unprecedented understanding of loneliness, where for the very first time we could glimpse inside each other’s hidden worlds.

Inside the unseen.  

Here’s to a Holiday season full of empathy for each other’s pain. (Click to tweet!)

May we witness what was impossible to witness before and help each other heal. 

This is indeed a special December 25th where a supernatural and unconventional future can be born as we walk out of an unnatural year. 

 

With many future stories to be told,

Christina

P.S. This whole week on my Dear Life Podcast we have special episodes to get you through these days. I hope you listen HERE.