2021 is a new year, and we were supposed to celebrate. Or at least that is what we would have done in a normal year, if the world were still normal. But everything has changed. This year begins in the midst of trauma. On the world level, there is a pandemic that we still don’t actually know whether the experts will be able to control. On a personal level, I am dealing with more grief than I ever thought possible. However, despite these challenges, I am reminded that there is hope. While I am not ready to embrace it yet, hope is there, off in the distance like some perpetual sunrise. Right now I am focusing on being present, where and how I am. I am holding. Therefore, my #OneWord2021, is hold.

A simple word, containing only four letters, but the Cambridge English Online Dictionary (HOLD) has 14 meanings for it. However, I believe my situation is most relevant to first and the last: “to take or keep something in your hands or arms” and “to wait, or stop something temporarily” (HOLD).

When I physically hold something, I tend to form an attachment to it. I contemplate it. Does it bring me pain or joy? Is it attached to memories? Is it a symbol of entrapment or freedom? Do I need to hold onto it, or is it something I can let go? This is where the second meaning comes into play.

While ‘hold’ seems like a place of stagnation, where there is no movement forward, it may be a necessary pause before a person can continue. Like a runner who doubles over after finishing a race, a person needs to catch their breath once in a while before moving on. The most important aspect of this word is that to hold is temporary.

‘Hold’ is a catch and release process, where the release needs to be just as intentional as the picking up. With my #OneWord2021, I commit to taking the time to contemplate the components of my life, whether they be physical, mental, or emotional, internal or external, and then let them go. Some things will go out of my life for good, and others may need a special place, so that I can pick them up when they are useful to me. Holding, therefore, is an intentional part of the healing that I recognize I need to do before I move forward toward the sunrise of hope.

I feel like healing is happening in the outward aspects of my life, too. To further my future career as an educator, I need to do the personal healing to be able to be comfortable with students and colleagues who, after the year we have just had, will likely be in the process, too. I commit to hold their ways of healing sacred, and to be open-minded to the fact that everyone will do it differently. For my students, I will do my best to model holding my views up to a mirror, to scrutinize and refine or scrap and rebuild my ideas, if necessary. I will try to hold their learning process with as much grace as I wish I had received during my school years. But most of all, I will be ok with those who seem stuck in a place like mine, allow and support them, when all they can do is hold.

References:

HOLD: Meaning in the Cambridge English Dictionary. (n.d.). Retrieved January 19, 2021, from https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/hold