Well, that all went pear-shaped quite quickly. All the way back in March (March!!) I was casually thinking that I might be doing okay, that I could tootle along in my usual fashion and keep on writing.
That proved to be extremely optimistic. Along with the rest of the world, I watched the year descend into madness, with borders closed, hospitals overwhelmed, and rumor and innuendo only adding to the drama that was 2020. And it still continues, as we face heading into 2021 with the same COVID-19 issues we’ve had in 2020.
Foolishly, I was under the misapprehension that by the end of the year we’d have reached the ‘end’ of this saga, that we’d be facing the new year with optimism and the world gradually healing from this insidious virus which seems to keep popping up no matter what the world does to combat it.
Not so.
Back in March, I was feeling marginally optimistic, but that optimism got swallowed in a tsunami wave of anxiety and a wave of manic episodes which have pretty much sidelined me for most of the year. I’ve kept functioning (just), but those words which were still flowing in March pretty much died out about four minutes after I hit ‘publish’
But just recently… just in the past few weeks… the creative juices have started to flow a little, despite a bout of depression brought on by messing up my medication regime while we’ve rushed to finish renovations in our little old house (which we bought in July, shortly after the strict travelling bans were eased).
So I’m looking towards 2021 with a modicum of hope, and although it’s always a battle, a teensy bit of optimism. And I’d like to wish you all a bit of that same hope and optimism, and add a sincere wish that you can make the best of a Christmas and New Year which will no doubt look vastly different for all of us who inhabit this planet than it has in previous years.
D.S. Williams 