2021 was the year of sewing up wounds with no anesthetic. 2021 was cheap vodka with no chaser. 2021 was treading water with no life raft in sight. But here we are, at the end of it, more or less in one piece.
This one time, I broke my finger after crashing a scooter in Rome, and though it healed, it’s been a little crooked ever since.
Are our hearts the same? Do our broken hearts ever mend? Or do we just eventually get used to the way they’re still a little broken?
Do we ever heal from a loss? Or do we just gradually forget what it felt like to not miss someone every single day, as grief just becomes part of us? Do we ever get back to who we were before? Or are we balled-up pieces of paper that can be unfolded and ironed, but never truly smooth again?
Last month, my brother sent me a link to an Andrew Garfield talk show interview, where he said that grief is just unexpressed love, and it remains with us until we pass too, because we never get enough time with each other.
So maybe 2021 was not just bad vodka and all those other things, but also the year of remembering that life is short. Nothing is guaranteed. Happiness is all up to you. A broken heart still beats. And everything always turns out all right, even when it doesn’t.
2021
