The start of 2022 was extremely difficult for many of us. Omicron ruled the day and made the holidays challenging, the future looked bleak, and the ever-changing scope of the pandemic looked like it was here to stay. At the beginning of 2022, the poet Amanda Gorman had shared this poem. I read it then and quite honestly couldn’t relate. I was angry, overwhelmed, sad, and just not even open to much hope at that time. I knew it was time for me to do some soul searching and self-care, both of which I have been doing religiously since 2022 began.
Now, I am ready for Ms. Gorman’s beautiful words. I’m ready for spring, for hope, for an end to this deadly pandemic and the divisiveness that it has brought. I’m ready for peace around the world and health and prosperity for all of us. What I’ve really come to realize this year is that hope is so crucial to our mental wellness and when we don’t feel it, it’s time to make some changes in our life.
When everything seems bleak, our survival requires change that allows us to embrace hope. #Covid #hope #depression #mentalhealth Click To TweetSo this is a bit late, but still every bit as beautiful as the day it was written and published.
New Day’s Lyric
by Amanda Gorman
May this be the day
We come together.
Mourning, we come to mend,
Withered, we come to weather,
Torn, we come to tend,
Battered, we come to better.
Tethered by this year of yearning,
We are learning
That though we weren’t ready for this,
We have been readied by it.
We steadily vow that no matter
How we are weighed down,
We must always pave a way forward.
This hope is our door, our portal.
Even if we never get back to normal,
Someday we can venture beyond it,
To leave the known and take the first steps.
So let us not return to what was normal,
But reach toward what is next.
What was cursed, we will cure.
What was plagued, we will prove pure.
Where we tend to argue, we will try to agree,
Those fortunes we forswore, now the future we foresee,
Where we weren’t aware, we’re now awake;
Those moments we missed
Are now these moments we make,
The moments we meet,
And our hearts, once all together beaten,
Now all together beat.
Come, look up with kindness yet,
For even solace can be sourced from sorrow.
We remember, not just for the sake of yesterday,
But to take on tomorrow.
We heed this old spirit,
In a new day’s lyric,
In our hearts, we hear it:
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne.
Be bold, sang Time this year,
Be bold, sang Time,
For when you honor yesterday,
Tomorrow ye will find.
Know what we’ve fought
Need not be forgot nor for none.
It defines us, binds us as one,
Come over, join this day just begun.
For wherever we come together,
We will forever overcome.
Love,
Lisa Kaplin Psy. D. PCC