Metaphor for 2020

23

We had to cross town today; through Vancouver and over to Broadway to pick up Gizmo’s heart medications. That’s what qualifies for an outing on a rainy day in 2020.

Along the way I could see a lot of stores and restaurants have closed. Vancouver is a tough place to make a go of a restaurant at the best of times, competition is fierce. This year? Ouch. I feel so sad for those that have put their heart and soul into an enterprise only to have the rug pulled out from under them, so terribly unexpectedly.

We didn’t drive straight home after picking up his prescription and some seed. I think we are probably both feeling cagey, so Kirk took the long way home and, as we passed Hastings Park, Kirk turned into the lot and we did a little drive through.

It’s strange to see it so empty. Although it’s not normally fully operational at this time of year, there should at least be Christmas craft fairs happening. None of that in 2020 though.

The rides, shut down for the season at this time, the same as any normal year, still had a feeling of abandonment. Looming over the fence at the edge of the park is the old rollercoaster. It had a melancholy feeling to it; more likely that’s just my current mood.

This particular rollercoaster is one that terrified me as a child, and it’s one of the few remaining wooden rollercoasters in the world today. I loved rollercoasters as a kid, and still do as an adult, but that one was another animal when I was small. We had come to Vancouver when I was about ten years old or so. I wasn’t tall enough to be on it, but I stood a little taller and managed to be let on. And I regretted it then. We rode it once when we first moved to Vancouver and I discovered it was still an exhilarating ride.

2020 is certainly a rollercoaster; ups and downs and blind corners that catch you unaware. It’s been a rough year and none of us have any idea what the other side of all of this will look like, but hopefully things will turn around soon, hopefully we will come out of it all a little smarter, a little more caring of the people around us, a little less entitled, with a little more gratitude for the things that really matter. Hopefully we will learn some good lessons and make some positive changes in the world around us.

Until then…hang on and don’t let go.