“You can do a lot, but you cannot do everything.
Forgive yourself.”

-Me to my kids

We are coming to the end of the year. What a year it has been. I think even with early stay home orders in March we had some high hopes, didn’t we?

Maybe this will be the year that I will brush up on my Japanese? I always wanted to get back to learning the piano. I was even tempted to try the ever popular sour dough bread recipe and starter that was going home to home all over the US (although I always wondered if it wasn’t a bad idea in time of a Pandemic).

People were going to grow a garden. Create new art. Start writing that book they always meant to do. Putting all the kids pictures in some sort of order or even in an album.

They were going to get fit. With all this extra time, maybe train for a marathon.

Some of you did any number of these things. I saw it. It was all over social media. Those bread loafs looked so good I could appreciate the warmth and the smell all the way into the Pacific ocean. Your virtual race time was so enviable. You actually got to finish your draft for your book. I know who you are…

And some of us did none of it.

Let’s call it the survival mode.

For me, I was trying to be present and not get rolled over by the madness of being a working physician and a mom to two middle school kids. It was enough not to lose my mind trying to teach my Waldorf child what a zoom was, and how to respond to an email. Heck, it was the first time she had access to a computer of any kind.

Between being worried about not picking up COVID19 from the hospital, when my brother in Japan insisted we should all be wearing masks, when CDC was going around telling us not to, and wearing scrubs again for the first time since residency, it was all a blur.

Scared of picking up COVID19 and giving it to my kids. Scared of my kids accidentally giving it to their friends which would lead to the demise of their grandparents.

Scared of buying groceries (what do we wash, what do we bleach), scared of any events that required us to leave the house.

Learning to cut my husband’s hair. Learning to tend to my own hair. Doing makeup above the nose only. Running with a face mask on. What a weird time we are living in.

I am confident so many of you had some sort of new year’s resolution. I am pretty sure that whatever was going to be accomplished in 2020 got side lined.

In medical school, anytime any pregnant mom would show up with a ‘birth plan’ we would chuckle. That would be the exact person who would end up with a crash C section.

You make your plans for the future and then wait for the next shoe to drop.

That’s life.

2020 was life on steroids.

Thank you for teaching us what matters the most. To stay close to home and connected with one another while being socially distanced.

For teaching us who are the real heroes: Everyday people. Moms learning to home school and kids learning to just calm down around each other.

What a pressure cooker.

In times of adversity comes time for growth and self reflection.

Thank you, 2020.

I am going to look back on this year and think that if nothing else, we are all so resilient. You gave me a clear vision of what’s important. But also a clear vision of what I should not take for granted anymore.

I am going to appreciate when doing my consults about end of life care, the patient is surrounded by her family who’s holding her hand.

I am going to appreciate giving homemade cookies to the postal worker and not wonder what he should do with it.

Holding people to say hello and goodbye to when they come to my home. People coming to my home. I miss throwing dinner parties with kids playing scrabble until midnight. I won’t take those days for granted anymore.

I think if you did nothing productive in 2020 and you still made it, that’s a cause for celebration.

We can do hard things.

Even if this end of the year may mean nothing and it just weaves into another year of separation, isolation and sacrifice; we know we have been there, done that, and we can do it even more.

Happy New Year everyone!

I am grateful for this moment in time, and I hope you are, too.

Instead of picking an end of the year resolution, like in Yoga, I will pick an intention instead. My intention for 2021 is Acceptance. I am pretty certain that intention can handle any thing life is about to throw at me.

With Love and Aloha!