Whose helmet is this?
The scene: It’s New Year’s morning. 2023 has just begun. The group chat receives a message from the host of last night’s very informal get together with the picture of a motorbike helmet. He doesn’t know whose it is.
We all freeze. After all, we all left the house that night; some of us even on bikes.
How did someone manage to leave without their helmet?
__________________________
Three whole years since 2020.
Truthfully, it feels like a blur. 2020, and all that it carried with it, still feels so recent; our lives and the world around us continuing to show scars and remnants of a year, and a global event, that changed each of us in our own individual ways.
These last few years have rocked us to our core. Similar to an offensive explosion by the opposite team in sports; the events of 2020 and 2021 left us, as humans, stunned; staggering back to our respective corners to recoup, re-evaluate, and re-establish who we are and what is important to us.
2022 was the year we collectively found time and the ability to heal.
As I turn the page to 2023, for the first time in several years, there are tangible memories. I remember writing a similar essay as we ended 2020, and one of the biggest difficulties came in recalling individual moments that happened throughout the previous year. Instead, much of what I was able to look back and reflect on was very personal; inner growth and progress, as opposed to physical, measurable moments.
In contrast, in 2022 I was able to properly travel freely again; without restrictions, forms, and COVID tests for the first time since early 2020, taking 4 trips in the calendar year.
I began an entirely new career in a field I both love and have dreamed of working in; a testament to something my parents always preached: do everything with purpose, care, and passion. You never know who will take notice.
I was fortunate to witness close friends get married, support friends going through a difficult situation with their newborn baby, and see numerous other friends enter that new journey of parenthood as well.
I’ve recently come to terms with the pandemic’s effect on my mental health; being able to share with those close to me my very real struggles during 2020. Thankfully, 2022 was the year I was able to make gains to move past that period in my life and reflect on the myriad ways the world around me has changed, and what my place within that world can have the potential to be.
Finally somewhat freed from the weight of COVID, the last year offered the opportunity for us to unravel the mysteries that the previous two years had left in their wake. Both collectively and individually, who had we become? The last few years have seemingly left us both irrevocably shifted, and curiously stagnated.
However hungover we felt, 2022 allowed us the strength and the breathing room to take stock and move forward; our metaphorical step into clarity.
At times it involved picking up the pieces of our mental well-being, other times simply picking up the pieces of our house, dusting them off, and asking ourselves, “Whose is this?”
The question might have made us uncomfortable at times, perhaps even a bit embarrassed at what we had found. It has been hard to remember everything that’s happened in the last few years, after all.
The discovery, as is often the case, isn’t a cause for concern or worry. It’s simply a truth that we need to own; something we need to take note of, recognise its reality, and learn from.
After all, sometimes after years of chaos and uncertainty, people and things can end up exactly where they are meant to be.
Sometimes, amongst all the twists and turns, we find a path and a story that simply makes sense.
Sometimes, the enigmatic unclaimed helmet at your house is simply your wife’s, and it probably belongs right where it is.
Welcome to 2023.