A letter to the past
Dear 2019,
We’re sorry.
We thought we needed to move on — to keep moving forward — but we see now that was a mistake.
With all the talk about the new, we began to take you and your “same old” for granted.
And now that 2020 has shown us its true nature, we have regrets.
What it had in store for us was new, all right. None of us has experienced anything like it.
MORE: See all of our Write On, Colorado entries and learn how to submit your own here.
But it wasn’t a good kind of new, and now we’re dreaming of days gone by.
Days of you, 2019, when we took spontaneous trips out of state.
All over the state.
Next door.
Days when a cough didn’t cause us trepidation.
Days when the sight of a dwindling toilet paper roll didn’t cause anxiety.
Days when our hands weren’t red from scrubbing,
and Clorox wipes weren’t the most important item in our pantry.
Days of coffee dates and play dates, leaving the house to work,
and shopping all day for non-essentials.
So, 2019, we know it’s too late for us. You’re long gone.
But we just want to let you know that even though you were full of gun violence,
unprecedented flooding, fires, and catastrophes of all sorts,
2020 has the “hold my beer” attitude that could get us all killed.
Yeah, we know, we’re committed to this new thing now, and we just have to make the best of it.
Just wanted you to know… even though we scraped you off our feet at midnight on December 31,
we were maybe too harsh.
And if we live through the psychopath tendencies of this new year,
we’ll remember you with fondness and probably hold you in higher esteem than you deserve.
One final wave then, old friend of freedom, before we hunker down to defeat this beast.
Jodi Bowersox is an author and artist living in Colorado Springs.