After Darkness Comes the Light
Monday, December 21st — the best day of the year in our opinion. We do not like the dark. In fact, we are actively pursuing the goal of always living somewhere that has 12+ hours of sunlight a day — or in our words, “Chasing the Sun.” And while this winter has been filled with darkness — both the physical and mental kind — as December 21st comes and goes we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Our winter has been spent mostly inside. The horrible side effect of working at an “office” job once again. We head into work at 7:30 am and don’t leave until 5 pm usually. That amount of time spent inside, with only a small view of the happenings of the world outside the window, has not been very good for our mental health.
We took these jobs at the ski resort in the hopes of getting out on the slopes as much as possible. And while we have skied more times this season than the past couple of years, it still doesn’t feel like enough. I don’t think any job will feel like “enough,” unless we have the opportunity to go outside every single day and have some kind of adventure — which is obviously our overall goal.
This winter has also been tough in other regards. There is no denying that Covid has wrought havoc on almost every person in the world in some way or another. While we have been lucky enough to not get sick or to know anyone personally who has died due to the pandemic, we have still seen the impact of the virus on our everyday lives. The emotional baggage that comes along with a global pandemic is very, very heavy. There is this sense of foreboding, sadness, and fear that just permeates into every corner of our daily lives. For us, who now work at a busy ski resort and deal with people from all over the country every day, that fear is very much a thing — a thing that we feel constantly.
But as the end of 2020 comes nearer, and the days start to get longer, we have began to reckon with our situation and look at it with fresh eyes. This year has been a weird one. At the end of last year (2019) we thought 2020 would be “the best year yet.” We had goals, dreams, and some big ideas. Mainly a motorcycle trip across the whole southern USA, a summer spent renting out our yurt and shepherds tent in the mountains of Colorado and finally, a winter spent in the Southern Hemisphere — namely Argentina. In the end, those three things didn’t really pan out how we wanted or expected them to.
So while 2020 didn’t turn out the way we had hoped, we still can’t necessarily write it off as a “bad” year. In truth, it was actually quite fun. We had different, new, unexpected experiences. While our travels didn’t come to fruition, we instead got to explore more of our home state of Colorado — and even move to one of the cutest towns in the state, Crested Butte.
Lately, we have had a lot of discussions on how it is sometimes too easy for us, and humans in general, to focus on the negative. As humans our brains seem hardwired to only think about what went wrong, not what went right.
While the year isn’t over quite yet — we still have a few more days before officially ringing in the New Year — we have officially passed the Winter Solstice. Which means days are getting longer, the sun is rising earlier, and the temperatures are starting to rise (kind of). So while it is still winter, especially here in the mountains of Colorado, the light is just around the corner — both realistically and metaphorically.
So here is to 2020, a year that challenged us. Pushed our limits. And made us see just how strong we really are. And here is to hoping (praying) 2021 is a little bit brighter.
