When we wish a happy New Year, or say things like “good bye [YEAR OF HORROR*],” it’s not that we don’t know that time is an arbitrary measurement, or that one year flows into the next without revelation, or that one day flows into tomorrow, like the following hour, the following minute, the second after you read this sentence. We implicitly understand that as soon as 2020 ends in our respective time zones everything will not magically change other than the little number at the end of the year.

I’m writing this while the world’s champion singer caterwauls through “Like a Rolling Stone” and it seems a fitting way to end the year. “When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose,” indeed. What a terrible feeling, this 2020. Remember how we all said it was going to be our year back at the end of 2019? Back at the end of 2018? Back at the end of 1967? Back at the end of the beginning of time? Plus ça change, if you’ll pardon the French.

But is it too much to ask to just shush for a moment and let people have some crumb of hope in such a year that seems darker than usual? Yes, things have been building to this for a long time; 2020 is not some weird anomaly. But it seemed uniquely terrible and every day brought some fresh new horror, and we never even got to the murder hornets. Remember the murder hornets? Simpler times, my friends.

So what now? We take a moment perhaps to breathe, to look forward at 2021 at what could be good and what work is left to do to move ahead, not just for ourselves but for everyone. What can you do to improve someone else’s situation? Don’t think too big about this, we’re not talking about changing someone’s life right out of the gate. Can you put thought into action? Can you live AND love mas**? The rollover from 2020 to 2021 is here. What will you do to bring yourself and others to a Happy 2022?

* please don’t steal this title/idea, which belongs to me, and which is mine and what it is, too.
** please don’t sue me, Taco Bell.