If I had to describe 2020 in one word it would be: Paradox.

The world has taken a 6-month break.

For half of the year, it has felt like nothing.

But somehow, it also feels like everything.

Everything feels uncertain, but at the same time very certain.

The paradoxes and nuances of life that are otherwise ignored have become clear to me. In this time, where the movement has been restricted, I have grown more than any other year in my recent history.

I often reflect on the paradox that is 2020 and all of it is not lost on me.

How can a year as enigmatic as 2020 also offer us a reckoning so deep it confounds us to the point of almost no words? There are simply no words, perhaps not enough words to fully articulate the learnings, pieces, subtleties, nuances, lessons, complications that this year has presented us.

I am awe-struck.

Awe-struck by the lessons we did not see coming, by the waves of new and fresh ideas that have come to be by force. I am awakened by the inconvenient truths that slipped our conscious minds because we were too busy or too careless.

So now what?

Everybody is asking what to do next?

What do we do?

What should we prioritize?

This year has required us to sit down somewhere and be intentional about our movements.

I hope for the sake of our mental and emotional well being that we normalize this pace of life.

Let's normalize the calm, the lack of needing to give the obligatory "yes" to every request, the unabashed asking for what you need in order to feel safe and secure. Let us normalize taking care of one another by thinking of how our actions impact the other members of society, let us continue to remember those who couldn't take time off, those whose work is considered essential in order for us to have a sense of normalcy; remember that they have always worked really hard to keep the rest of us safe, and that faced with the realities of this pandemic, we are only now noticing.

I have made a choice to certainly keep this pace. Remembering the power of kindness and holding of boundaries.

Now, what about you? What lessons will you take with you as we get back to "normalcy"