Living in South Florida (and even during my time in North Carolina) I would count down the days towards November 30th after going through five to five and half months of mind-boggling stress with the hurricane season. Perhaps a sigh of relief once Halloween passed though there was technically still a month left. This hurricane season, with the exception of 2005 perhaps, was unlike anything we had known.
I bring this up because in some sense, 2020 has been a yearlong “hurricane season” of sorts. It seems once the Super Bowl was over here in Miami and the Chiefs were anointed champions of the football world, things really took a slide. Unlike November 30th and the end of the official hurricane season, this “season” is not over quite yet.
The tumultuous summertime of demonstrations, protests, and riots. An anti-police fervor taking shape with outrageous strategies to defund law enforcement. The peaks and valleys of more cases, more hospitalizations, and more death because of COVID affected the law enforcement agencies just as much.
Add in a healthy does of perhaps the most virulent political season this country has experienced since 1968, if not 1860, and you clearly get a good look at what we have been up against throughout the year.
But we are nearing the final round. We can still get clipped at this late stage in the game, but that light at the end of a tunnel no longer appears to be an oncoming freight train. There is reason to open the door for 2020 and give it a swift kick in the keister as it’s leaving. By the same token, we should embrace 2021. It won’t start off like any bargain, but slowly and surely it will get better.
We will get things back on track and we will move forward once more. We just need to hang in there a little longer. Without a doubt there will be trying times in some shape or form in 2021, but by weathering 2020 we are better prepared to handle for what lays ahead.
Hence, my mantra for all of us in this chosen calling we call law enforcement comes from Nietzsche.
“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”
The very best in health, safety, and happiness to you and yours.
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