Say what you want, the Christmas holiday period is an artificial thing, the presents, wishes, parties, a lot of food and even more drinking. I can do without. And then maybe not. There is a reason for it all, I guess. So, let’s put our cynicism aside for a while.
2019 – what a year?
Nothing wrong with looking back, once in a while, strike a balance. Can be useful, if anything to make up the New Year’s resolutions, you know these promises you make to yourself and later fail to keep. As if a number 2019, 2020, could change something in your life, could change you. It’s all in our head…
as far as I’m concerned
2019, so. For me, it was a year with a lot of ups and downs, my close ones know what I’m talking about. I choose to remember the good things: my grandchildren Fran and Ellis. Sometimes worry, sometimes tiredness, but most of all happiness, amazement, and a whole lot of love. Priceless.
The same with my family. My boys, sister, brother, nieces. Our beloved mama. Family tights were especially important this year.
And friends! You know, real friends, they don’t need words to understand you, they feel what’s going on, and act accordingly. It was a friend’s year for me. With at the end even a fine reunion with long time friends.
The year of the bike, of course, just 2000 kmbetween june and december. In the sun, the rain, the wind. With heat and cold, with or without trailer. Luckily: always with a smile. Despite of it all, without hatred against car drivers. A few times almost hit by a car, verbal aggression all over. But also polmiteness and understanding.
Urbi et Orbi
Worldwide, take a pick to choose the themes of the year: climate change was on the news almost everyday, with the protests but also with disaster after disaster, record after record.
Trump, of course and this damned Brexit, with the sight of shouting PM’s. Not only in the UK, we have seen the same kind of images in different countries: PM’s almost fighting as if they were kids. At a time that a lot of people have their doubts about our democratic institutions. Social turmoil, also, with the yellow vests, who emphasize the chasm between us.
Chasm, It could be on the lsit for word of the year. Discord, polarization, synonyms. I was quite disgusted by the tendency of the last few years which culminated in 2019. I had never seen such a discordance, “we” against “them”, which was stimulated by populist leaders. The result was that it was easier to know what people were AGAINST than what they were FOR. You could ask yourself, why do these leaders have to gain with it, but the answer is so-imple: money and power. We saw it with the Brexit, it was used as a lightning rod for the real big problems. We saw this in Belgium too, with the never ending formation of our federal government: some people can see the benefit in creating chaos, if any, for electoral or ideological reasons. We have returned to the old left-right dispute, although it is useless, as left wing parties have moved to the center in the last decades, and lost their credibility and their followers. (Far) right parties take avantage of the situation: they treat left wing people as if they were the devil. They also make use of scapegoats for every problem: the migrants, the Irish, the EU, Islam, terrorists, lefties, … It’s always someone else’s fault.
peace on earth
Hence my call for the year 2020. I wish for eveyone, the “whe’s” and the “them’s” a strike of “all together”. Inclusion as a leitmotiv for the whole year. Understanding the other, listening, kindness and indulgence.
It’s Christmas holiday, dreaming is allowed.
A happy year 2020 to everyone!
Marc