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The Year of WTF??? My annual reflection on where I am versus where I thought I’d be has been derailed by my father’s death, a global pandemic, and what appears to be the precursor to a second civil war in America. History is being made even as it’s being erased. Change is not only happening. Change has happened. There is no going back now—not that going back is ever an option. We don’t go backward; we go into retrograde. Maybe this time, the changes will stick. Maybe this time, real change will result. Healthy change. Universal change. Change for the betterment of all.

While I’m dreaming ... I’d like a pony.

Oh, it’s easy to be cynical. Even I, trippy hippy Ru, have slipped off course in the past twelve months. Change on the heels of change in the teeth of change has taxed my coping skills to the max. Exhausted, I lie by the side of the road and watch the landscape undulate like a stormy sea and wonder how the heck will I find the strength to adapt, assuming the storm will pass?

It will pass. It has to. It always does—but man, this sustained assault has me questioning my own sanity as much as anyone else’s. The world has gone mad ... and yet how many generations have looked at their world and expressed this same sentiment?

All of them, I bet.

Finally, finally, my sightline is starting to level. It’s hard not to look back, to stop reiterating the litany of struggle against, yep, change that began years ago with Ter’s retirement (but probably goes even farther back) and ends (one hopes) with Dad’s passing this past June. In between? Chaos. Massive continual upheaval in my family, home and professional life, not to mention the effect of COVID-19 on all of the above. A category four onslaught of a metaphysical nature that could have—and very nearly did—destroy me.

Melodrama, you say? Could be. I am a writer, after all. That has not changed, thank the gods. At times I wondered, even feared, it was not so, but in my soul, it’s what I am. Still and forever, whether or not I am productive.

Yeah, this past year has been a bit of a gong show. I’ve lost some ground, but I can get it back. It likely won’t take as much energy as I fear, either. With energy at a premium these days, this fear seems legitimate, but I also know fear is the means by which my mind tries to control me. My mind, and CNN.

Having accepted that I am not remotely close to where I had thought to be at the end of my fifty-ninth year (today being the first day in my sixtieth on the planet), it’s time to look ahead. I’ve no idea and even less control over how the greater world will look this time next year, but I do have a say in my corner of it. In my year to come, I hope for inner peace. For more serenity, more success, more love, more creativity, more kindness ... more me. By reclaiming Ru, I know I will be the better for it, and I kinda think the world will be, too.

A windshield take up significantly more space than the rearview mirror, so eyes front and bring me that horizon. Happy birthday, Ru.

With love,