2022 sucked. Stand Tall friends, you survived it!
…
Oh wait, we should probably expand on that.
It’s easy (and convenient and lazy) to say that 2021 was one for the record books, but there were some significant events that made me, and much of the rest of the United States of America, feel just a little bit less “united”. Starting, within a week of the year beginning, with an insurrection at the US Capitol building in Washington, DC.
It feels like it happened a long time ago. But it’s important to realize, that was less than a year ago. Like, 360-ish days ago. A mob of 45-supporting rioters tried to alter the result of an election, one said by multiple reliable sources (and even Fox News) as “the most secure election we’ve ever had”, and they successfully entered the Senate chambers to try and alter the results. That is literally treason. And because of the times we live in, it was streamed from multiple camera angles and personal cell phone footage of reporters, security cameras, and even those of the propagandized mob that did the dirty work.
Thankfully, they weren’t successful in what they were working toward, and Biden was sworn in as the new POTUS on January 20. By the way, like many liberally-minded people, I don’t really care about Biden specifically; “lesser of two evils” and all that. He’s not an active racist insurrection-inciting, attempted tyrant. Seriously, that guy can vanish into the ether.
I don’t want to go through the full year–there were far too many news stories to cover, from a successful coup in Myanmar to the rise of the omicron variant of COVID–but in my own life, it was an eventful year. The past two have been, in fact. Getting married in February 2020, starting college again in August 2020 and graduating August 2021, still dealing with excising my father from my life and mental well-being, learning to make a (tiny) video game for my wedding rehearsal party and then releasing my own at the end of 2021. I even made another game, starting a sort of annual tradition, with “Happy 2022!” released on Christmas Day, then immediately started work on a brand new game that I’ll make sure to document the process of. Hopefully that will release by the end of this year. (You can find out more about it as I build it from my Instagram account.)
2020 was an terrifying year, starting early with a worldwide pandemic that has, to date, taken the lives of nearly 5.5 million people worldwide, with over 800,000 of those in my home country. Hell, over 76,000 deaths in my home state alone. And with nearly 300 million cases across the planet, and new variants like omicron spreading faster than ever (even in vaccinated people, with thankfully less-severe symptoms), everything is still really, really scary. But through that fear, we have hope; more people are getting vaccinated and boosted every day, places have safely opened (even if mask mandates are back across California), and we’re learning to live with this reality and live our lives again. We need to remain as vigilant as ever to keep ourselves and our world safe.
But… we’re still here. We still live on. We keep trying to move forward. It’s in my nature to try to find the silver living, hard as that might be, but it’s there. And damn is it nice to see.
Stand Tall, and stay safe friends. After a terrifying 2020 and unnerving 2021, we have a 2022 to save, and we’ll need you around for it.