When I wrote this title, I was thinking about the past–particularly when we settle into the norms of our lives. Once we have established routines, we believe that things will always be the way they are, that nothing will change.
If we have a routine of waking up or going to bed a certain hour, or a route we regularly take to work, we hold them as constants. We don’t think deeply about variations once we’ve become accustomed to doing things a certain way. We don’t think far enough into the possibility that the roads might change, or that the times we wake up or go to bed will have to be adjusted.
Even with regard to the friends and people in our lives, we believe that they will always be in our lives. But as time passes, we notice that people move, change jobs, or simply get busy with social engagements or their careers. Each month or year is lived like a chapter–a period in which habits and choices are readjusted frequently to meet the newest circumstance.
So many factors come into play that affect our decisions, which can uproot our lives from the foundation with which we established. Life is unpredictable. Perhaps our belief that things will “always be that way” is just an adaptation to the current environment, a way of adjusting to the newness that befalls us at each stage in life.
In some ways, I wish things can “always be that way.” The great memories I had, the adventures I took, the places I traveled to–sometimes I dive into those memories to relive them, to feel what they were like. It’s as if I didn’t want things to change, or maybe its indicative that I didn’t want to let go of them.
2020 turned the world upside down. 2019 felt like a utopia compared to the unexpected doom and gloom and isolation that befell us. I spent many nights reflecting about the past, the people I got to spend time with, the places I got to travel to, and wished that things could always be that way.
It’s hard to let go of the past, but maybe we’re not supposed to let go of it. Maybe we’re just supposed to make peace with it. 2019 was such a happy year for me. 2020 was just the opposite. I hope 2021 brings something positive change for all of us.
Fallton Havenstonne 