Today is the day we say goodbye to the old year, and welcome the new one.

2019, like all years had its ups and downs for everyone. A journalist on Twitter has a daughter who received a liver transplant. Whatever downs he’s had in the last twelve months don’t seem that insurmountable as they did on the last December 31st/January 1st. The same for my friend whose daughter just had her first child, a daughter, several weeks earlier than planned, premature, very low weight, but breathing on her own and doing great. They both are. Whatever comes is a blessing to her.

I’ve been thinking of President Obama. I recently finished Samantha Power’s book, The Education of an Idealist, and I am incredibly saddened by what could have been during the Obama years had the Republicans not been so power hungry, prejudiced, and obstructionist. I saw so many things behind the scenes (from her book and other staffers, but it really brought it home to me with her book), and the victories for the American people were wonderful (the passage of the ACA, the Lily Ledbetter Act, Marriage Equality (Oberfell), the Paris Accords, Cuba relations, and so much more), I also saw how much didn’t happen. I missed a lot of that in the real time that it was happening. For Obama’s eight years, I was comfortable. I slept at night. I was able to ignore politics because I trusted that we would be kept safe. And we were. In 2016, I voted, and went to bed well into the morning in mourning. It wasn’t quite like 9/11, but the trauma and the emotional toll was close. Since then, I haven’t let my fear, my anxiety, my depression stop me from speaking my mind. And as we enter 2020, the only real resolution I have is to be more politically active; in my writing, in campaigning, in my speaking out, in my truth-telling. For several months, I haven’t let feelings stop me from expressing truth and calling out lies. It has not won me any friends, but I won’t let lies win the day. There is no both sides. There is no alternative facts. And fake news isn’t an answer to dedicated journalists. I will never forget Merrick Garland. I will never forget the damage the Senate Majority Leader has wreaked on our Republic, our Constitution. Never.

I am not making everything political. Everything IS political. Politics rules our lives; from the health care system and insurance to civil rights and women’s EQUAL rights which unbelievably we still do not have. Equal protection, reproduction, bodily autonomy. Who I can marry.

2020 is a new year, a new decade, a leap year, and an election year.

It’s time to get up and promote what we believe in. I believe in one nation. I believe in people helping others when there’s no benefit for themselves. Selfless. Self-sacrificial. Faith-based, but based on your OWN faith (or absence of it).

Something else to think and meditate about coming at 11:30 and beginnings coming tomorrow, including my 2019 Book List.

Have a Happy New Year, a Blessed New Year, and think about who you want to be in 2020, and the years that follow. That is my resolution/goal/intention for the next three months.