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Collected Item: “Dear 2021”

Give your story a title.

Dear 2021

What sort of object is this: text story, photograph, video, audio interview, screenshot, drawing, meme, etc.?

Blog

Tell us a story; share your experience. Describe what the object or story you've uploaded says about the pandemic, and/or why what you've submitted is important to you.

Dear 2021,

A promise, once spread out the hope of an uncertain rebirth of life. A light reflected the forgotten words of a mocking society through the shattered glass. We wanted the upcoming year to be full of joy, happiness and as what used to be always, full of social interactions.

Upon 2020, nonplussed, we decided to step ahead, having no expectations on how threatening this step would be.

At the beginning it seemed like a single country situation, we didn’t care much. Friends still hug each others, terrorism and riots kept on going and so did pollution.

A day followed the other, and suddenly a shut down came by.

Universe made its call and it was time for it to balance things out. I guess that we, this generation created a massive hustle, impacting the world positively and also negatively.

During this strange and silent period, the world is brought to think and reflect.

In a population that used to buy, consume and work on a daily base, where Sundays or Saturdays were ways to get a small breath in a suffocating life, a virus came and all of us were suddenly forced to stay at home.

An era full of misdeeds and confusion, little human being suddenly did become the possible killer of an elder.

Days felt hard, long and the promised hidden light at the end of tunnel was less and less viewable. But a question belongs among us, why is staying at home so fervent, when a century ago our ancestors were forced to kill and fight for the promise of a future peace?

Birds were hiding to die, sign of misfortune. Death marks the end of a life, but never the ending of a grief. A new flag was raised and it was a blue mask. A new weapon , hand sanitizer.

Eyes brought us back to a time where the information wasn’t easily obtainable, old times of an enjoyable sorrow.

In these deep moment, death or illness was accepted, shunned but certainly not forgotten. The concerned families were brought to burry their heads underwater and scream pain silently.

A connected generation begged for freedom, to let their hands go and restart living, start back what made us this new generation, the 21st century people.

In a way this burning request can be seen as a demand of life, normality or even just a spirit call. Spirit has always made itself more living than simple materialism, so have we learned? Were we ready to grow up, and face the upcoming burdens? Is life going to come back as normal?

Dear 2021, be kind to us, to the world. Sinner and Saints, killers and savers, blacks and whites, Homos and heteros, all of us threw a stone, set a margin in this so called life. Coming out from the isolation period, contact were made back, but different. Activities and work took back place, but different. The social system fired back, but different.

The difference is not that big, but nowadays hygiene Normas become the main focus of health services; but this slight change is very impactable. I’d like to quote a blogger on this platform named Kristijan,17 from North Macedonia that sparkled the fact :

"three things I don't leave my home without:

my phone, my wallet and a face mask."

back to normal but different.

Dear 2021, let this year be brighter and let the human kind learn.

we are all humans, so keep us united.

From 2020 youth- Elyés Ayadi

Use one-word hashtags (separated by commas) to describe your story. For example: Where did it originate? How does this object make you feel? How does this object relate to the pandemic?

pandemic, 2020, 2021, stay at home order, peace, grief, Social Justice, ASU, HST580

Enter a URL associated with this object, if relevant.

https://www.voicesofyouth.org/blog/dear-2021-day-covid-19-hit-world?fbclid=IwAR3_Kf0t2aU5FeSM-OAAxUYIP5TtglOYeMIA5a7T-KRQgpFu5aIwmH7FDNg

Who originally created this object? (If you created this object, such as photo, then put "self" here.)

ELYES AYADI

Give this story a date.

2020-08-09
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