I was thinking about how 2020 was the year of ambiguity. We didn’t know what to expect. Although 2021 is being touted as the year of recovery, realistically speaking, 2021 will be the year of waiting (for our turn to get vaccinated), and rigorous planning and organizing (for the life after vaccination). It will be 2022 that will be the year of recovery.

I was telling a few colleagues at work that I have never had to wait 12 months for some thing, as an adult. I don’t intend to sound privileged. This is a reality for a lot of my generation, especially the ones that live in bubbles like this valley.

In that vain, it is usually difficult for me to think and plan two years ahead. Perhaps that’s the gift of the virus. To be patient, as individuals and as a community.

Now when I was younger it was common for my parents to tell me that I couldn’t do something because I was six. But that I would be able to do it when I was seven or eight. That was the last time that I recall somebody giving me a time horizon of 12 months.

One of my colleagues was quick to point out that I delivered Tara after nine months of pregnancy. And this wait is rather similar. I beg to disagree. You see when you are pregnant you are very well aware of the outcome. It is more or less certain that you will have a child at the end of it all. Barring any complications. You also start to nest and become accustomed to the life you will start to lead as a parent. What is strange about this wait in 2021 is the fact that I do not know what normal will be like even after waiting for 12 months.

In 2021, we will all learn to be patient and wait for the circumstances to get better. How we will define the “better” will be unique for each of us. But the overall community has to also become “better”, for us to get on with our lives.

I noticed how I try to seek comfort in being part of a community in this journey. Rather than me as an individual trying to fight this battle by myself. Now that is quite admirable for us as a human race, to opt in and out of community as it pleases us. Or rather as in this case, as it comforts us.

I sure hope that we continue to opt in to building communities, big and small. And learn to grow our individual selves in the backdrop of a comforting community. For this is not the last calamity we will face together as a human race. But this is a good opportunity to organize ourselves and beat the odds of our survival the next time around.