Let's hope it's a good one...

A very Merry Christmas

And a happy new year

Let's hope it's a good one

Without any fear

The original Celine Dion version, the John Lennon & Yoko Ono or any other cover - we all must’ve heard this song at some point in our lives. I listen to it every year among all the other Christmas Classics. This year it hit differently.

It’s somewhat hard to describe what 2021 meant for me. It was a rollercoaster of excitement and achievement, but there was always a shadow of fear, anxiety, stress, depression ever since 2020. However, I have to admit that it was only a small shadow. The light was shining right above me. I reached a point where I can manage these kinds of negative feelings quite well. I am not only building a safety net, but I’m learning how to use it too.

I am lucky to be surrounded by beautiful people who genuinely want to help me grow and who I can rely on.

From a youth work perspective, 2021 brought DEIS UK. It also brought connections and learning opportunities. I signed up for my MA in Applied Anthropology & Community & Youth Work (fingers crossed 2022 will bring good news in regards to that). I can’t complain from a writing, blogging, or academic perspective either.

I won’t go into more detail about every amazing thing that happened in 2021, I already wrote about them, they’re the Adventures of my Muddy Shoes. I am grateful for each and every one of them.

I will go into some detail, however, about what I would like to see in the New Year, and I didn’t see much of this year.

Now more than ever we need to build communities based on love and equity. We need to grow together, so we don’t grow apart. We need to connect and work as a global team. The more the merrier. This is not only about overcoming the pandemic. That is just one part of the problem. A virus can be controlled with medicine and vaccines, but hate, bigotry, selfishness are far more dangerous. They have been on this planet for ages and they mutate every passing minute, becoming stronger and deadlier. Trauma and fear are the most terrible illnesses because if they’re left untreated they alter your mind. Worry not. There is a cure: EMPATHY.

I will leave with you a short fragment from Alexandru Mitru’s ‘The Legends of Olympus’...

Epimetheus took the box and opened its lid slowly. He thought there would be precious gifts. But from this box arose, flying in packs, all the misfortunes and the evil that the world has had ever since.

Deceit, hate, worry, conflict, pain, misery, hunger and thirst, the dark plagues, and even death, the horrible death have been spread. All of them were guised in fear, winged, but mute, they spread everywhere, burdening the earth and building nests in all the four winds.

Epimetheus, seeing all the evil coming out of the box, slammed the lid back on. But it was too late. Disaster was flying above everything, and the world was carrying its weight. There remained in the box just one small creature, fragile and with weak wings. She couldn’t fly with the others and her name was: Hope.

Humanity seems to have opened this box, but closed it just like Epimetheus, trapping Hope inside it. In this New Year, let us open this box again to free Hope and with her help, let us defeat all the surplus of gloom - surplus because the world needs balance.

Happy new year, happy new year

May we all have a vision now and then

Of a world where every neighbour is a friend

Happy new year, happy new year

May we all have our hopes, our will to try

If we don't we might as well lay down and die

You and I