At a Loss
It is, inexplicably, already the end of January and I am at a loss – not for words, never that—but for an understanding of how so many bad things have already happened in 2025! I was not feeling especially hopeful as 2024 came to an end, but I was determined to begin the new year with an open mind. However, the sheer volume of devastation, loss, and change has left me a bit unnerved!
So many major news events have already eclipsed the senseless tragic violence that took place in New Orleans, a mere three hours into the new year, when a man purposely mowed down revelers and then later that morning, in Las Vegas, when another man blew himself up in front a well-known hotel, that they barely register in the collective memory.
Soon thereafter, there was a mass shooting outside a nightclub in Queens, NY and we didn’t make it through the second week of the new epoch before the first school shooting of the year took place, this time in Nashville, TN.
Not to be all gloom and doom but 2025 was already off to a pretty rocky start when fire broke out in Southern California, killing dozens and leaving thousands of people without homes or livelihood, eclipsing the focus of our nation that was mourning the loss of one of our great humanitarians, our 39th President, Jimmy Carter, who, at the ripe old age of 100 years, died at the end of December. Maybe he could feel what was coming!
Jimmy Carter was President during the end of my glory days of high school. The time of gas lines and when the price of petrol surpassed two digits in the United States. The country experienced an energy crisis, the Iran hostage crisis, the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt and terms such as “stagflation” floated about, followed by a recession – all in the four years he spent in the White House, none of which got a whole lot of my attention – I was a teenager stepping out on my own with little interest in politics or the understanding of the ramifications. Still, while his Presidency may not be ranked among the best, it is far from the worst. I believe his heart was in the right place.
Jimmy Carter proved himself to be an exceptional humanitarian and spent the next several decades as an ambassador for peace. In fact, winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. He lived by example and what an example he was. He was an honorable human, married for 77 years to the love of his life who worked beside him following his years at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Even as his time on this Earth was coming to an end, he helped ease a bit of the stigma associated with hospice care by living nearly two years after stopping other treatments. I was sorry to hear of his passing but there is no denying that his life was a life well lived. I admired him.
He was in the building business – building up others, building bridges (metaphorically speaking), and literally building homes through his support of Habitat for Humanity.
He would likely have been among the first to start the rebuilding that will need to take place in the devasted regions of Southern California. There, the real work is just beginning.
While I was already reeling from these many major events, I was also preparing for the loss of proximity to one of my closest friends, who packed up her life and relocated 1100 miles southeast, in the name of love.
As I was reminded countless times by other well-meaning acquaintances, family and friends, she wasn’t dying… she simply moved away, but I grieve the geographic loss of my closet friend. She has been my exercise partner, my partner in crime and my plus one on many, many occasions. She is simply one of the best people I know. I’ll miss our regular visits, our walks, and the therapy that came with the talks on those walks.
Admittedly, I was already dreading the third week of January, so I took some preemptive measures and planned a getaway -- out of the country. My husband and I spent most of January 20th in airports and in the friendly skies – followed by a week of fun and frivolity in a sweet little beach town in Mexico. We lounged, ate, drank, walked, explored, slept, read, sunbathed, ate and drank and explored some more and enjoyed the kindness of many strangers and hardworking people. It kept me disconnected from the real world and helped me reconnect with my spouse.
I try to focus on how very lucky I am. I know and bind myself to good people. Even when we disagree, I can see honest intension, strong ideals and a solid moral code. My people are people with conviction. People with values. People who are committed to making positive changes in the community and in the world.
I am not one to align with those who are motivated by sheer greed and disregard for the plight of others, or with those who are only interested in their own pursuits and advantage without regard to how others may be impacted.
Sadly, I see we are sorely lacking in the good person department when it comes to our national leadership. How far we have come the likes of a man like President Carter. It is incredibly difficult for me to tune in to the work of our latest administrator and those who are complicit.
I am trying to focus on those who are in charge on the local level and hope their moral compass pulls strongest. Leading for the greater good – not their greater good.
I am trying to keep my faith in humanity, to believe it is all going to work out over these next four years. It may be only January, but I am at a loss.
xo, Hollie
