365 days of one of the longest years gone. One more to go. And by longest year, I mean from a global perspective. Because of leap years, this is technically longer than 75% of the other years. If you told me in February that a fire that burned 45 million acres of land in Australia (roughly the size of Oklahoma) and the out of nowhere death of Kobe Bryant would barely register as memories of 2020, I would have told you you were crazy. Pandemics. Shut Downs. Political unrest. Civil Unrest. Widespread unemployment. Economy crashes. The list goes on and on and on.
And yet…
This is the year that gave me the birth of my first born. The purchase and move in to a new house. A new job. A great deal of extra family time because of the move. I want to look negatively on 2020. Because I feel like I should when I look at everything going on around me. But I can’t. Was 2020 weird? Undoubtedly. It was the strangest year on record for me. I’ve worn a mask at least once a day every day for the last 240 days, which is 240 more days than I’d ever worn a mask for longer than 10 minutes at a time. And that doesn’t even seem weird to me anymore. But it doesn’t really matter much because I get to go home everyday and spend my time with the two girls I care about more than anything else in this world. Everything else just kind of melted away as secondary.
Today is a cool day though, because I get to look ahead at 2021. I get to look ahead to new hope and to new possibilities. I’m writing some things down here just because that should give me some accountability. Goals for 2021:
Become closer to God and my faith — daily devotionals and journal writing. Allison and I have started to hold each other accountable by recounting our brief studies in an effort to make this more routine
Become a better husband — couples therapy. Not because our marriage is bad. But because it could be better. Don’t be complacent
Run more — you know what, cycle more too. Get back into better cardio shape. Run track workouts. Bike around town (get back to running at least 3 miles like it’s nothing. I know I can still run 3 miles, but I hate myself when I do)
Jump higher — back in the day I used to have a 32.5 inch vertical. I don’t know what I measure at now. But I know that I’d love to turn the garage into my jump lab and devote to stronger legs. I’m not ready to stop being young (at least 3 leg workouts a week once Reese starts daycare)
Become a better cook — cook at least one new dish every month
Focus on family — this isn’t something I feel like I’m failing at, but I want to put it out there that I’d like to continue to do so
More than anything I look forward to 2021 because it’s a step towards a different year. I know that the calendar flipping the page doesn’t really mean anything. Time marches on regardless of whether we want it to or not. But it still helps just to be able to write a date that doesn’t end in a zero.
