It’s been a wild ride these past few years. I feel like we’ve had moments of hope, mixed with moments of exhaustion, mixed with times where it’s been hard to feel much at all. It’s been high and low, good and bad, and absolutely everything in between. So in these times, in order to keep my own sanity, I find myself searching for things to inspire my mindset. This little nugget of inspiration was found where virtually no wisdom ever originates, in a meme I found online. “If you’re going to do something anyway, you might as well have some fun while you’re at it.”

The end of the year is upon us, and I, for one, am excited to turn the calendar page on the year 2021. This year has been full of highs and lows, a pendulum swing of hope and optimism followed by a crash of reality that we are still not out of the clutches of a pandemic. Collectively, we’ve seen people at their best and at their most divided. Yet here we are, we are still standing. We have been weathered by the storm; we are (hopefully) emerging into a more promising 2022. We have been changed by having lived through these strange times. So, for a moment, I’d like to ask each of you reading this to take a moment and appreciate how strong you really are. Just the fact that you made it this far is an accomplishment. Yes, it counts.

I’ve been checking in with many of my optical friends across the nation lately, just trying to see how they’ve weathered the pandemic and the easing of restrictions. What I’ve heard from several of our optical friends is that the gravity of this last year and half has been difficult to shoulder, and things feel a bit unsettled in general. And I can relate, I’m located in an area that has removed most mask restrictions except when in medical settings, which has led to me growing weary of having to defend my office’s position on mask wearing to clients on a sometimes-hourly basis. In these times, and to be honest, in most times in my personal life, I tend to lean a bit on sarcasm and humor to get me through when things feel weird.