For 2022 More VIM, Less Grim Please!

Dear 2022,

With respect, I wonder if you could please give us all a break. A break from disappointment, worry, and outsize, continually unexpected and difficult to navigate challenges. We don’t need all rainbows and cupcakes, just a break. A bit of hope that we don’t need to be on edge for the next situation that is completely and utterly out of our control. We want to move forward, be productive, make things happen, build connections, create art, experience culture, and develop the lives that we want for ourselves and others without constantly being battered down by outside circumstances like oh I don’t know… nasty virulent strains that mutate and relentlessly persist?

I do believe humans have an admirable resilience… the optimistic ability to bounce back, pivot, re-define and move forward. We have proven that okay? So how about we dismiss these back to back year long seminars in resilience building and move on to something more productive for the universe? 

Thank you and Happy NEW Year.  

Greetings Group! Yes, tomorrow we welcome a New Year!

Not sure where to send the above missive, but it does summarize my stance on the last two years and my hopes for all of us in 2022. For this family, 2021 had a grim start and has had a grim ending. I would really like to be done with grim. For 2022 how about we have less grim and more VIM? 

For this theater enthusiast, the month of December has been grim to the point of heartbreaking. Each and every Broadway show that has closed is a punch in the gut for me standing way outside on the periphery. Can’t even imagine how painful it is for each company to get news of an unexpected and immediate closure with no opportunity for a proper and cathartic last show. It’s just poof, gone, over. So sad.

Must be honest that all of this minute to minute uncertainty does make it a little difficult for us to keep this group moving forward, but what else can we do? Stop? Quit? Revert to a Netflix series over the performing arts? Unfathomable. So we mourn the loss of shows that close too soon and we hold tight to the ones that remain open. We acknowledge our sadness. We even wallow in it for awhile. Then we take several deep breathes and we choose to move forward. Because we earned it and because vim is preferable to grim. 

See you in 2022!

Linda