I had an entire collection of words about why I am currently crying. There are a lot of reasons; heartache, missed moments, missed hugs, missed curtain calls, missed Junapera.

But, I realized something: right now, the overwhelming emotions and feels I have are not actually sadness.

They might be a little bit of grief, a little heartache.

You know, 2020 norm.

The words though that are filling my brain and growing larger and larger so to be seen and heard are as follows:

Hope and strength.

Woof.

My bestie Tori said something back in the 5^th or 6^th month of March that comes back into my brain frequently. She said that hope feels dangerous.

And as we start to step into the next calendar year with the knowledge that nothing will really change when the clock strikes midnight I need to choose more than I believe I have the ability to do so: to hope anyway.

I need to choose hope and be active in believing that good things will happen.

That good is still true.

I have the knowledge that wishing for good doesn’t mean that not good won’t happen: but choosing to believe that good is still true is choosing to believe that it can happen in the same span of time. That things that don’t feel good aren’t forever and that things that are good can still come.

And the second I feel is this: strong.

If you know me, you know that I detest the world resilient.  Mostly in regards to children and to how much they are capable of withstanding. But, that’s some other words for another day.

I’ve realized that I am strong and resilient, and I can handle disappointment and sadness and do hard things in spite of how my insides feel.

I can function with high amounts of anxiety and I can keep fucking going even when all I want to do is stop.

I garnered strength for myself, for my people, for my tiny humans this year. I also borrowed strength from all of them as well.   

But I cannot walk out of 2020 without admitting to the fact that I am stronger.

And I think that’s what I want to leave you with: you are stronger. You might not feel it. You might not be able to pinpoint the moments, but damn it, you are.

You might feel as if this year chewed you up and spit you out. You might have lost a lot. You might have quit here or there.

You might have drank too much, or ate too much, or binged watched.

You might feel like you failed (trust me, I know the feeling), but I want to remind you that you are stronger.

At the beginning of this year I referenced “The Labyrinth” (yes with David Bowie) and this is what I said:

“The road to worthy is like the movie The Labyrinth. It’s speckled with twists and turns and things and people and creatures trying to move you off course. There’s the little wormy things trying to invite in you in for tea so you forget that you are trying to save your baby brother and in all reality save yourself.

This season terrifies me a little. Just like David Bowie terrified in the Labyrinth.
I was freaked out and given the heebies jeebies by the weird 80s vibes of the Labyrinth- but I had to keep watching.
I’m a little weirded out by the creatures I might find along the way. The words, thoughts, and emotions that have and will distracted me and led me off my path because they did and still do feel right.
This next year freaks me out because, in all reality, this momentary lapse of crazy in referencing the Labyrinth has just cemented the fact that this year is about movement.
You can’t get through a maze if you don’t keep fucking going.”

I want you to remember that you can’t get through a maze unless you keep going.

And guess what? No matter how you feel you did, or what you did or didn’t accomplish, you got through this Labyrinth that is 2020.

You are stronger. And you know you can do it.

Because you did.