Ode (or Owed or O.D.’d) to a departed 2020
This post will arrive in your Inbox on “the twelfth day of Christmas” (Jan 5), marking the official end of the Christmas season.
Meantime, we’ve flipped the calendar to a New Year. We’ve left behind a year that will live in infamy; negative associations with the number 2020 will, no doubt, linger for a very long time.
To lift our spirits and encourage us as we move forward, my friend and fellow rent 2 own operator from the Niagara Peninsula, Daniel St. Jean, sent me a list of things he’d compiled to ponder as we reflect on the year that just was. He graciously allowed me to reprint them for my readers. Enjoy!
- The dumbest thing I bought earlier last year was a 2020 planner.
- I still can’t believe that people’s survival instincts told them to grab toilet paper!
- 2019: Stay away from negative people. 2020: Stay away from positive people.
- The world has turned upside down. Old folks are sneaking out of the house and their kids are yelling at them to stay indoors!
- At the store, there was a big X by the cash register for me to stand on . . . I’ve seen too many Road Runner cartoons to fall for that one!
- Every few days, try your jeans on just to make sure they still fit. Pajamas will have you believe that all is well in the kingdom.
- Does anyone know if we can take showers yet or should we just keep washing our hands?
- This virus has done what no woman has been able to do. Cancel sports, shut down all bars & keep men at home!
- I never thought the comment, “I wouldn’t touch him/her with a six-foot pole” would become a national policy, but here we are!
- I need to practice physical-distancing from the refrigerator.
- I hope the weather is good tomorrow for my trip to the Backyard. I’m getting tired of the Living Room.
- Never in a million years could I have imagined I would go up to a bank teller wearing a mask and ask for money.
- Laurel and I stayed up on New Year’s Eve . . . not really to see the New Year in . . . but to make sure 2020 left!
Clearly, not a lot will change in our lives just because we flipped the calendar. For some time yet, we’ll still keep wearing masks, we’ll keep social distancing, we’ll continue to be deprived of social activities, many will keep working from home, some will stay unemployed, government payments will continue to help, and people will continue to seek homeownership help through rent 2 own.
But, provided we do those things we need to and can gradually return to normal—or a “new” normal—we should be able to look back a year from now to a 2021 that, though also filled with humour, will offer up many happier recollections than 2020 did.
