As I sit here, staring at my screen, reflecting on this past year, I contemplate which direction to take.  Do I scream and curse at everything 2020 has taken from me, or do I really look at what it has given me?

It’s easy to focus on the negative: the financial losses, the lack of human contact, the loss of affection, freedom, and certainty…so I’m choosing the more difficult option. Despite everything we have lost this year, I’m counting my blessings. I woke up this morning in a New Year, safe in bed with my little family, in our home. My little business is still running (despite everything happening around us), and I have no threat of losing my livelihood. I can pick up the phone and call my siblings, parents, and nephews. I am grateful despite you, 2020.

And despite you, as well, Leaders of our country.  See, as I’m reflecting on my year, forced to stare at things beyond my control, things that cost my business revenue that can never be made back, cost us time with friends and family, caused excess cases of loneliness, depression, and anxiety, all through decisions that were NOT MINE, I realize those decisions were made by someone.

So, as I reflect, I’m hoping those decision-makers, OUR LEADERS, are doing the same.  I’m hoping that they have enough of a conscience to really think about what they have cost our country.  I hope they think about the millions of dollars they cost small businesses when they locked them all down for months at a time, and the BILLIONS of dollars they made for huge corporations when they simultaneously kept them open.  I hope they remind themselves of all the revenue lost in restaurants when they took away half their tables, while I felt people’s breath on my neck at Costco.  I hope they think of every unused creamer I sanitized, while someone touched every apple in the produce section at Walmart before deciding on one.  I hope they think of the 80 yr-old woman who passed away alone, without seeing her grandchildren one last time, while 50 people wait in line at the LCBO.  I hope they think of the 55 yr-old business owner who lost everything in multiple lockdowns, claimed bankruptcy, and took their own life in a depression, all while you, our leaders, collected your full salaries.  I hope you think of the strain on the relationships, the anxiety, the drug addictions, the suicides, ALL OF IT, when you reflect on your year.  While you spent holidays with your families, though you ordered us not to.  While you vacationed at your cottage, while banning us from ours.  While you treated us like children, giving us rules, while you did the opposite.  I truly hope when you sit down and reflect on your year, you ask yourself, did my decisions make sense?  Could I have done better? And then, DO BETTER. 

I am choosing to be grateful because I’ve managed to keep everything I’ve worked for, despite everything you have done to take it away.  Because when you worked against us – the little guys – our friends, families, and communities worked WITH us.  I am so grateful for all of it.  My friends, my family, my community…my life.