Pick three words to describe this past year. (please keep them PG. Thanks).
Disastrous. Tumultuous. Anxiety producing.
What were the best books you read this year? Or the best movie you saw?
Untamed by Glennon Doyle tops my book list. I’m currently reading I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown and that’s an eye opener, too. As for movies I’d have to say the live action version of Mulan was pretty freaking incredible.
Because there was lots of time for looking inward, what is one big personal lesson you learned this past year?
I feel like I’ve already learned this one but clearly it didn’t stick since I had to relearn it three or four more times this year: I cannot control what other people do.
Do you think Covid has strengthened or weakened societal bonds?
I honestly think it’s weakened them. Covid revealed exactly how little Americans care for one another as a community and that makes for strained relationships. I also think there’s a price to be paid for this forced isolation. Don’t get me wrong, I 100% believe we need to be distancing as much as possible until we achieve mass vaccination/immunity, but relationships break down and that feeling of belonging to your community suffers.
What is a New Year’s Wish You’d Like To Share With the World?
This year I’d like to see the beginning of real and meaningful structural change. My hope is that there’s enough people willing to do the right thing, regardless of what it might cost them, in pursuit of a just and equitable world.
Sparks from a Combustible Mind hosts Share Your World.
Riddle from the Middle 
I fear that during the course of this isolating year the kids have heard many a non PG rated comment. Just sayin. So that would make you a mistress of understatement. Even though the chosen words are not usually considered understatement. Now if we can just do a speed calendar on the first 19 days of 2021. It has been a long four years.
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Wouldn’t that be lovely. I can tell I’ve hit another threshold because I loaded up The West Wing this week. I tend to rewatch the series when White House nonsense peaks — it’s comforting to escape into competent leadership, albeit fictional, even if it’s just for a while.
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Thanks Laura for Sharing Your World! I agree with the ‘crowd’ on your choice of three words. One blogger apologized to me because they merely wrote W? T? F? A little humor (gallows type perhaps). I agree with your view of what the pandemic has done to ‘society’ on the whole, one person has pointed out that “Covid” is merely the virus (tool) and IT, being a virus, doesn’t do anything to anyone, it merely replicates, and infects, which is its design and purpose. Uh, okay. I’m glad you grasped what I meant by “Covid” = pandemic. I’ve personally seen the breakdown you mentioned, in that all the enforced isolation has merely made my innate introvert-ness worse. I’ve lost patience too with fools who refuse to help others or themselves by the simple act of masking up. I support your wish for the New Year. Let it be so (please)!
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W.T.F. seem like wholly appropriate choices for 2020. 😆 It’s been interesting (not necessarily in a good way but it is what it is) to see how covid has amplified people’s natural tendencies but even the introverts I know aren’t thriving under these circumstances.
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That’s strange you should mention the introvert bit. I just had a rather lengthy (on my part) comment ‘conversation’ with a long time blogger friend about that. She mentioned that her agoraphobia has worsened perceptibly, and I’ve developed it to a degree. I had social phobia issues BEFORE. People with mental illnesses (not that introverts are mentally ill) have been impacted just like any other group. For the worse in my opinion. I liked WTF? It put the whole year into perfect perspective for me! ☺
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Funny you’d mention agoraphobia. My husband commented on that recently. I’ve never struggled with it but he was saying my response to the virus looked like how people became agoraphobes (is that a word?). Love him but that’s the perspective of someone who’s never had to handle major health issues personally.
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I’m so with you on this. The bar has been set pretty low for 21, but I don’t want to tempt fate.
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Right?!? Because every time – EVERY TIME – I thought well, at least 2020 can’t get any worse it found a way to surprise me. Ugh.
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Laura, well said. I read a lot of books and watched a lot of movies (and mini-series) this year. My favorite fiction was likely “Where the Crawdads sing?” and favorite mini-series was “The Undoing.”
I like your words, “tumultuous” is very underused and apt for the year. When I think of how poorly the US handled COVID at the top, I would use “incompetence” as one of my words. This was the year, the world’s impression of America’s competence dramatically fell, along with our already sinking reputation. The third word is “untruthfulness.” While I never expected the outgoing president to be a truthful person as it his against his nature and history, the degree he has gone to disinform and the acquiescence of his toadies, has led to chaos and a threat to our country.
Keith
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Well put, Keith. The incompetence killed so many of us and that untruthfulness has fostered a divide between citizens so great I wonder if it will ever be bridged.
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perfect choice of your 3 words
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Thanks, Beth. They felt all doom & gloom-y but every time I went back to edit them I was like nope, that sums it up. 🤷🏻♀️
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Great answers. I don’t know what I missed but Mulan has appeared in many answers for this prompt.
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It’s worth seeing. If/when they ever open theaters again I’d go see it just to catch those shots on the big screen.
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Good to know
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Your feelings are a mirror of many many people. I do hope that real change comes in 2021
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💛
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👍
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