Quote Anon

If 2020 was given an award, for me it would be the ‘year of rules’. When you can and can’t leave your home, who is allowed to go to work and who should stay at home. Definitions of what a key worker was, is and will be, changing rule about what time corona can strike you in a pub.

I’ve always been someone who played by the rules and perhaps also someone who broke them, I have a vivid early memory around five years old of a man dressed in a banana man costume telling us in assembly to not put sugar on our cereal, his nutritional warning has haunted me for over thirty years and I’m proud to say I have never once added sugar to my morning bowl of grains.

Breaking rules is perhaps a little dramatic, I prefer to call it ‘artistic licence’ – take for example the yellow line that surrounded my 80’s playground…On occasion I did enjoy sliding my Mary Jane patent shoes of joy with white lace socks over the line…alas the world didn’t end as perhaps the teachers had suggested and my adrenaline hit was harmlessly fulfilled for another day.

Whilst I realise my examples may not be life and death as some of us have tackled this year, my message today is two fold and comes from a place of love.

1. Look at who made the rule and perhaps their motive. Sadly in politics motivation is often about power or money. * I must confess the yellow line in the playground was to keep me safe – sorry

2. Be kind. Everybody has their own situation, story and need. Unless somebody asks you what you think about a given situation, leave them be. If Janice decides to pack thirty people into her home for Christmas Day and those thirty people have all decided to go…the consequences be it pandemic nightmare or Christmas cheer are all up to them.

If Joshua’s boarding a plane to see his family, with two stop overs – it’s on him.

If Boris decides the vaccine isn’t for him, it doesn’t necessarily mean he is anti vac or will pose a threat to you, who perhaps has chosen to put the chemicals into their body…it’s Boris body.

Rather than post scaremongering articles, or believe the news is correct, allow people to source check and come to their own decisions. Perhaps Father Christmas isnt massively into wearing a mask, let’s hope he respects all the children of the world and pops it on when entering chimneys on Christmas Eve….it’s kind to respect other people’s wishes as well as observe your own. Often adults forget the word ‘compromise’

2020 has taught me that people can be judgmental and cruel (particularly around ridiculous things like toilet paper) and that only leads to a society that is divided – history tells us this never works out well. So as we step into December and potentially are able to congregate, I will make my own decisions that are suitable for me and my family, I will try to walk away from heated debates, scroll past scaremongering and often false headlines and weave my way through 2021 with kind words. Will you do the same?