How 2020 Has Changed Us
This year has held so much. Before we move into 2021, we wanted to hold space to reflect on the multitudes 2020 has contained. We will carry the lessons and scars of this year long into the future, so it felt worthy to take time to consider those and how this year has changed us.
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Episode Resources
2020 Tested Us Beyond Measure. Where Do We Go From Here? (Time)
How to write a grief letter to 2020 (Catherine Andrews)
Transcript:
Sarah: [00:00:00] The gut punch, the shock, of spring was hard, but the fall felt like just being like kicked when you were already down, like we are all so low on any sort of reserves or margin or resources or patience and it just felt like the hits kept coming. But I do want to recognize the bright spots. That this was a free and fair election and that millions and millions of Americans participated in it and that is fantastic and that is wonderful.
This is Sarah
Beth: [00:00:37] and Beth.
Sarah: [00:00:38] You're listening to Pantsuit Politics.
Beth: [00:00:40] The home of grace filled political conversations.
[00:01:00] Sarah: [00:00:59] Hello, everyone. Welcome to the final episode of Pantsuit Politics for 2020. For anyone who is a new listener, Beth and I, and our fabulous team, take the final two weeks of the year off to let ourselves rest and recover and we certainly need that after this year. You know, and past at the end of a year here at Pantsuit Politics, we've turned such, such hopeful episodes like what we wish, if we had a magic wand, what do we want to see policy-wise?
That did not feel appropriate for 2020, maybe in January, but for 2020, we really wanted to process with all of you, this incredible historical unprecedented year. And so that's what we're going to do. We're going to walk through the different seasons of 2020, the events that had they happened one at a time in a single year would have seen [00:02:00] momentous, but that when you really line them up and take it all in, you realize that we have been asked to face, confront, deal with, react to an enormous, enormous amount of things here in 2020. And so that's what we're going to tackle here with our last episode.
Beth: [00:02:20] And we hope that this gives you some good closure for the year, an opportunity to catch up on Pantsuit Politics episodes that maybe you haven't listened to yet. I know many of you are like completion people. They have to, you have to hear everything. I admire that about you. So get caught up. I am so excited about what we are working on in January and through the rest of the year, I feel like we're going to get to do so many interesting topics on the podcast next year. So a little closure today, some space and then diving in, in January,
Sarah: [00:02:50] What really struck me, and was sort of the impetus for the idea for this show, is as I was looking back, [00:03:00] particularly on the months of January and February of 2020, before we were shut down, before we were social distancing and wearing masks, before the pandemic had taken over all our lives, we'd already dealt with an enormous amount of crisises and news and chaos.
I mean, in January alone, we dealt with the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, the tragic death of Kobe Bryant. We had the Australian devastating Bush fires. We even had Prince Harry and Meghan Markle walk away from the Royal family and that was followed closely behind in February by the impeachment of Donald Trump.
It's just like when you look back and think so much of what seems momentous about this year as the pandemic, but before that even really affected all of our daily lives, we'd already dealt with so much.
Beth: [00:03:52] January in particular, when I started putting together just my own notes of everything that took place, it really knocked me [00:04:00] down to look at January because in my mind, in so many ways, now this year starts in March.
Yeah. It feels like a lifetime ago when you and I were in Iowa and New Hampshire. Even when we were in Texas for our last trip of the year, before everything shut down, that just feels like a different era. And looking at that era and thinking about its complexity and remembering how. I assumed, I mean, I was consumed by transcripts from impeachment hearings for so much of this year.
It's really breathtaking everything that we've undergone as a, as a country and as a world, I mean, globally, so much of this, do the Australian Bush fires. A lot of this has just impacted all of us. It's no wonder we're feeling a real lack of processing power as a citizenry right now across the world.
Sarah: [00:04:49] Well, and I think, you know, as I look back at, in January and February and the democratic primaries, it felt because it was such a historical, diverse, [00:05:00] slate of candidates that were running for the nomination. Like it was, it felt so intense at the time and the debates felt so intense and now I'm like, Oh, what I wouldn't give for that, like positive intensity.
And I think it sort of faded so quickly because, you know, Joe Biden became the candidate in many ways he was expected because he was the least diverse of the offerings and, you know, was not breaking any sort of historical barriers except for being the oldest president. I just, I think that kind of like we moved on so quickly, even though it was such a big deal and it felt so intense.
And, you know, you got swept up with one candidate and then maybe they would drop out. And we had so much vested in the incredible light positivity of Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren's plans and so many of us got our hearts broken at the beginning of this year with that primary and we had to just kind of like forget about it, move on quickly.
Not to mention just the drama of the Iowa caucus itself and all that. I mean, I was thinking about like, Oh my God, what if the pandemic had been here? And they'd had to figure out how to do [00:06:00] those caucuses in the middle of social distancing after witnessing one.
I mean, we had drama when they could, you know, they had every tool available to them and there was delays and who was one and it was so close. It's like, you know, it should have been a good preview for the intensity of the rest of this election season. I think some of us thought that way, but. I just look back at it and how consumedwe were by that process. And then it was like, we didn't have time to be like, wow, that was a lot before we were like, rushing onto the next thing, which is a theme throughout 2020.
Beth: [00:06:29] I always feel a little silly setting specific goals for the next year, because I have learned, at least in the business context, that you don't know what's going to matter.
You think you know what's going to matter and you have to make some decisions to keep some intention about that. But ultimately so much unfolds that you don't know what's going to matter. And boy that hit home with me just in such a visceral way, looking at this list, because I think at the beginning of the year, it felt really clear what the priorities for 2020 were going to be, and to have so many [00:07:00] natural disasters in addition to the pandemic coming in, it, it reminded me that I probably need to adopt some of the flexibility and intention around politics that I have learned to bring to the business side.
The other thing that was really difficult for me to sit with for a moment, and I can't believe I haven't thought about this before, I think that shows you too how much we've just been living from one thing to another, but to sit back and recall the impeachment proceedings, also made me think, where would we be today if the Senate had removed president Trump.
And that is really hard to think about because as much as I don't hold Mike Pence up as a shining representative of my politics, I can imagine him leading through the pandemic uninfluenced by Donald Trump, if that were even possible. Maybe it wouldn't be, maybe he would continue to be the [00:08:00] president on Twitter.
Right. Even if he had been removed. But I just think how many people might still be alive today. It's just, it opens up a lot of really hard, painful questions. And I think that maybe it's important to be in that grief.
Sarah: [00:08:18] Yeah. While I still set a certain amount of New year's resolutions and I assume I set some in 2020, I don't remember what they were but the practice that I've really internalized is a word of the year. And this year, you and I bought Allie Edwards One Little Word journals so that like you keep plugging into your word all year long and focusing on it. And I really enjoyed that. And also it was really hard because my word was clarity and I gained a lot of clarity about myself and the world and how I interact with the world through 2020.
It's like, if you, if you gain clarity [00:09:00] through difficulties and suffering, then we should all be like reaching Buddha level reflection and self-awareness at this point. I'm not quite there yet, but I do like, it's like, there's almost the way I look back and I'm like, dang, I regret picking that word. My word for next year is gentle.
Feel really good about that. But it's like, it's, there was a sense of gaining, like really good clarity and insight in these quick intense events, but like having no chance to really process and internalize them cause we were moving on to the same thing. The next thing I feel like I learned a lot through the democratic primary process.
I feel like I learned a lot through the impeachment. And in some ways, as I look at the way, the events of this year have played out, I feel like those lessons were true and we just, we just saw them come home over and over again. Like I hear you saying that and also we know how they're acting when he lost.
So they would have acted the same way if he'd been impeached. He would have fought it, torn down our [00:10:00] institutions and gone after the processes. Like I think we don't have to kind of wonder what would have happened had they removed him from office because he's been removed from rasa office right now and we see how he's acting, you know?
Beth: [00:10:10] Yeah. I have so many questions about what would have happened if he had been removed. I have, I wonder if Joe Biden would have won the election. I wonder I just a million things, right. A million things. The democratic primary was exceptionally helpful to me in clarifying where I sit politically right now.
I think it helped me understand that there is some place for me here, at least right now. I think it helped me clarify what I think the government is good at doing and not doing. It helped me figure out where I have problems with the party. What precisely are those or what's the rub for me. And is that a real thing or is that a hangover from other phases of life?
Just the ability to get to some actual substantive discussion and not constantly [00:11:00] center the conversation around, not just Donald Trump, but Mitch McConnell or the Republican party in general, was a gift to me in figuring out where I am today so I really, however everyone feels about the way that it unfolded, and I understand that there are a lot of feelings about that and there should be, it's a lot of people, you know, invested in it and it's very complicated and very high stakes. But that component of it, the debates especially were extremely helpful to me.
Sarah: [00:11:31] Well, and I, you know, as we're processing this year, I want to be grateful. I'm so grateful that our community provided us the opportunity to go to the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary, where we went to a Biden rally and we got to see the next president of the United States up close and personal. I felt like that was incredibly valuable experience, seeing the caucus play out, watching people interact with the process, especially as 2020 played out and we have so much question about polling.
Well, how do we read communities and having the opportunity to go in [00:12:00] those communities and watch how they were responding to the policies and the politicians themselves was just. Unbelievably valuable and helpful. And I'm so grateful for that opportunity. I don't want to process 2020 and forget that we did learn a lot through positive experiences, not just negative ones.
Beth: [00:12:20] I could not agree more. Going to the Iowa caucus in particular is one of the most valuable educational experiences I've ever had. I mean, that truly was the best field trip I've ever been on. And, and I would like to do more of that, where we have the chance and, and some of this is a little bit because of the way Iowa runs those caucuses.
And I know that has its, its downsides too, but we were able to be there, you know, and not in some weird spectator role, nobody put a bunch of limitations on where we could stand and who we could talk to. We were able to just be embedded in it. And because of that, I learned so much and got so many questions [00:13:00] answered and really kind of fell in love with my country a little bit more.
You know, I haven't felt this patriotic in a long time, as I felt watching the Iowa caucuses, uh, even with everything that happened in the counting. So I share your gratitude for those experiences, definitely.
Sarah: [00:13:17] So it was, as we were traveling for the caucus and the New Hampshire primary that we started to hear about this virus in China, I bought mass because we were flying through O'Hare quite a bit.
And it felt like, you know, we had one more trip to Texas for a speaking gig. And then that was the last time that we got to fly and travel together and do any of our speaking gigs and then it rapidly just fell apart. I mean, Spring tour planned. Remember we were going to go to, I don't even remember where.
Yeah.
Beth: [00:13:53] Well, I know we were going to do like Boston, New York, DC.
Sarah: [00:13:57] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. I'd booked all that travel. [00:14:00] See like it's that feels like a lifetime ago because the shutdowns happened so quickly and you know, uh, the two moments in March that I will never forget and will recite to my grandparents, my grandchildren, when they're asking me what it was like to live through this pandemic, is the first we were gathering at church on a Wednesday night and talking about, Oh my gosh, it's coming. They're gonna shut down schools. They're gonna shut down schools.
And a friend of mine said, okay, guys, I'll see you in the fall. And we all kind of laughed, but he was right. We're not even done. We went through the fall and still haven't seen each other. And then the second thing I'll never forget is a tweet I read and I wish I could remember from who and this woman said, all this six week business is ridiculous. Start to count 2020 as a lost year, nothing's going back to normal this year.
And it's like, I simultaneous was like, no, she's not, that's not [00:15:00] true. That's not what people are saying. And also every cell in my body went, she's right. I know she's right. And I think those moments where you like. Could those sort of quick openings where you could, you could see and like something and you connected with clarity to like, this is how this is not going to be six weeks. I think I will never forget, because I think there were moments like that for all of us when we realized like, this is, this is going to be a life-changing.
Beth: [00:15:25] Mine was sitting in the airport, coming home from Texas. So y'all our last event from the year, when we say speaking gig, it was the biggest one we've ever done. We were in a room with over a thousand people. And it was a warm room. There was lots of hugging and handshaking. And I remember while we were in the room, because as we flew through O'Hare I connected there too.
And as I'm walking through Chicago, I look up and there's a big Fox news on where they're saying the first case had been reported in Chicago. [00:16:00] And I remember kind of going cold at that. And so then we get to the room and I looked around and I thought, Oh, this is maybe not a good idea right now. And it was a wonderful event, so much fun.
The people who invited us could not have been more wonderful to work with. And then I get to the airport. I'm waiting to come home and watching the news and kind of reading things. And I pulled up Voxer and I sent a message to my friend, James. And I said, I'm feeling really uncomfortable. And I'm looking at what's on our calendars and I don't feel like I want to travel anymore for a while.
Am I overreacting to everything? And I remember him responding and saying, I don't know, you know, he said it doesn't sound like an overreaction to me. But it's also so weird that I don't know how to process this. And I got home and drove to Kroger to pick some things up. And that was the last time for a long time that I went anywhere, that trip to Kroger.
[00:17:00] Sarah: [00:16:59] Wow. I remember reading that Oprah had canceled everything through the end of the year and was like, okay, that's it, we're done. If Oprah's canceling everything for the end of the year, this is it. And you know, the kids came home. It was very quickly adapting to distance learning, figuring that out. It was incredibly difficult, um, especially for my youngest, Felix, and.
Just, you know, at first, because there was so little curriculum coming from the school. And so like, we didn't have a bunch of zoom meetings. It was like me trying to fill the day with them and you know, like everything it's fun at first, at least for me, I like projects. I like new challenges and it very quickly became much less fun.
Now we were lucky in that, you know, neither of us lived in red zones in the spring, so we were able to go hiking and we would do geocashing and we would walk around our neighborhoods. And so, but it was just that fear of like, not knowing, not understanding it, that the moments [00:18:00] when we were all like worried about our grocery store, I remember Nicholas and I walking around with Clorox wipes every night and wiping down all our doorknobs and surfaces and being so scared that my grandmother or my parents were going to we're going to get it.
And we didn't know what it was or what it meant. Endless, endless endless coverage of ventilators and if we had enough and PPE. I think there were also, um, amongst that time, like real moments of connection and warmth, like I loved turning into the Instagram lives and DeNice is deejaying and, and watching our governor's press conferences every day, feeling very connected in certain moments during that time.
But it was really scary and especially in the beginning, because there was just so much, we didn't know. I'm still so grateful for Michelle Becker for coming on our show and helping us. And I do remember like picking up on what she was laying down from the beginning of like, it's not living on surfaces. We can't keep it alive in labs. Like everybody needs to chill about that, but it was still so scary. You just didn't know
[00:19:00] Beth: [00:19:00] My husband was there the whole time. We never wiped our groceries down cause Chad was like, that's dumb, Beth. That's this. That's not what this is. And I have really been grateful to have married someone who has a much richer, scientific vocabulary and understanding than I do, because I've really leaned on his take on things throughout this process.
I think the thing that I wish I could go back to March and say to myself, is that this living in short bursts is too hard. And I think Oprah's approach of canceling through the end of the year was the right one, and I think if I could have just heard in March, this is going to be a marathon, I think a year would have been a little bit gentler for me than it has been, because once I got to that place of just accepting, like, Oh, we aren't going anywhere.
Maybe they haven't canceled yet, but this is not going to happen, it was much less stressful. But you know, we had some events that went kind of down to the wire on whether they were [00:20:00] going to still hold this and what would we do in that case? And should I travel to this or should I insist on remote and whatever.
I mean, That stuff, it just felt like a new individual risk equation every single time and that part of this has been so exhausting and really kind of torn into those moments of connection. Because I think for two weeks, everybody was okay with just like huddle up and we're going to do this. And as it has dragged on, that's gotten so much harder.
You know, what really struck me in this time period too. So I, I was writing down that, okay. Pandemic starts in March and then I realized that's when Breonna Taylor was killed, but I didn't really start thinking about Breonna Taylor until May and realizing that gap, when she's in Louisville, which is an hour and 15 minutes from my house, really took me back and was a reminder of how much things have changed [00:21:00] and I guess how much they haven't too.
Sarah: [00:21:02] Yeah. I mean, I remember the story happening and I didn't feel like with George Floyd's murder, it was the first time I'd heard of Breonna Taylor by any stretch of the imagination. I think we talked about it on the show because it was in Kentucky and it was popping up more on our radar.
And I think that we, I mean, I remember you talking about no knock warrants on the show probably in April or May. I'm not sure the exact timeline, but just feeling like after years and years, really since Ferguson and Michael Brown, that there were cases that would come up into the mass media, like they would, they would reach a fever pitch and everybody would pay attention to the, that case.
And we would say, this is a problem. This is a tragedy, you know, from Philando Castiel to Freddie Gray, to all [00:22:00] these, these cases that would come up and, but this time, and I don't know if it was the pandemic, there's a part of me that thinks it was, or if it was just the incredibly horrific nature of that video of watching George Floyd being murdered on the street, that it stopped feeling like we're going to talk about, like, we're, we're talking about these as one-offs. It stopped feeling like that.
And I think that is the dedication and activism of the Black Lives Matter movement who were always, always, always in the streets protesting, pushing back on this idea that they were one-offs or bad apples, and it's not like I ever felt like that, but you know, the coverage was just so disjointed and now it feels like since this summer, since those protests across the country, which were, you know, In a historical year that it's hard to process and hard to grieve and you feel angry, like that moment I would say is when I felt really proud [00:23:00] to be, you know, in this historical moment as an American, not because, you know, you know, pride is a weird word.
I don't know exactly the right word. I don't feel proud that we're finally reckoning with the incredibly racist history of our country, but I do, it felt different. It felt different to watch these protests play out in tiny towns, including my own. You know, people filled the streets in my own town more than I've ever seen for any other thing like this and realizing like we're breaking through. That doesn't mean we're done.
This is the first of many breakthroughs we're going to need. And I think we've backslid since that moment, but like, I think that those protests in that moment in the summer was the clearest sort of, instead of feel, feeling like history was just happening to me, like with the pandemic, it felt like I was.
Cause I think that's, what's so hard about this year is in so many ways you feel powerless. And [00:24:00] so in that moment, It didn't feel like history was happening to me, it felt like I was participating in a way that I would be proud to tell my grandchildren what it was like. That we did look across the country and people saw things they were not, they had not seen before and they wanted to do something about it.
And they made their voices heard. It's just the first step and not the first step for many people who've been working on this for their entire lives or, you know, a project that we've been working on in this country from the beginning, but it did, it felt different.
And as I look back on the, on this year, like those moments in the summer and the conversations I had in the protest or participated in, and, and what we talked about on the show and what we heard from our listeners and what we all watch play out across the country was incredibly powerful.
Beth: [00:24:46] I feel kind of conflicted and talking about my personal reflection and learnings on this period. I will say that the juxtaposition of the racial [00:25:00] reckoning and the protest and George Floyd's murder and the attention that it got with the pandemic, it advanced my understanding of the problem, I think because, and I'm on a board with someone who just frequently talks about how we have these twin pandemics, the racial pandemic and the, the coronavirus.
And when he talks about that, it just helps me organize my thoughts so much more effectively because it's a reminder that the issues around race and policing in this country, George Floyd's murder is a very extreme example of how that plays out. Brronna Taylor, less so, right. That's very predictable. There's a process.
We understand a lot of the policing reforms and Maddock Glacey is just at a very thoughtful essay about this, would not have helped George Floyd [00:26:00] because that was an individual who acted brutally with other individuals who stood around and let him. Like that level of malice and abusive power and just violence inherent in one person that is extreme, but it is a manifestation of a problem that like coronavirus can present in such an extreme way in some people, can present in less extreme examples on a one-off basis and it's still deadly overall.
Because it's still so corrosive overall to all of our systems and to our economy and to our health and to our mental health and understanding those two things side by side has made me, I think, and I hope, you know, in my not sitting in front of a microphone life, a more effective advocate for systems reforms around race. To help people understand, I am not accusing you of being like the officer who [00:27:00] killed George Floyd. I am saying racism is in our air and we have to do something about it because it is corrosive in every way as it hangs in our air.
Sarah: [00:27:13] And I think from, you know, the political perspective, especially, you know, from our seats here on the show, having those protests happen and then having the party conventions, the virtual party conventions, right after it's just like crystallized so much that like, this is where the country is heading and these are the people who resent it. Like, I think about that beautiful moment that was so diverse when they were doing the roll call and the democratic national convention and how we all loved it.
And it felt like such a, like, it felt like the appropriate like positive response to so much of the conversations he handled happening around the pandemic, [00:28:00] happening around the racial reckoning. Like, it just felt like a good reminder we all needed like, we need that discipline of hope. We need to see where we're headed and to watch that and be like, okay, yes, this is why we're doing these hard things.
This is why we're struggling through these conversations. This is why we're, you know, investigating our own individual actions and motivations and having difficult conversations with those we love like, as like, this is the vision, right? This is what we're, this is what we want to be in America. This is the beautiful diversity, both geographically and population wise that plays out across this nation.
And it just, it felt really nice. It felt good to watch it all. I think that's why we all had that response to that particular moment. And then, you know, to have the Republican national venture convention come right after that. And just this really stark reminder that like, Oh yeah, but everybody ain't there with us.
Beth: [00:28:54] I hope that's something that we continue to take away from this year are some of those [00:29:00] simpler, more localized structures, less pomp and circumstance and more highlighting people across the country. Like, I don't know that a convention ever needs to happen the way it used to. I think this convention was much better.
When I think about the inauguration, I think it's something that could set a tone for the future that would be better. I think we should have an inauguration, not a coronation. And I fear that we have gone too far in that direction, especially since we've had this whole ridiculousness about crowd size. I think it might allow people outside of Washington, DC, to feel more connected to their government.
People who would never fly to Washington DC for an event like that and still this was their president. Getting rid of the inaugural balls might be a good idea. You know, we're at a moment where we could really learn a lot from this year. And I think this year we have more than ever [00:30:00] spread out our understanding of what different life experiences look like.
I've never heard so many people and I've never thought so much myself reflect on like, gosh, I have a reliable internet connection, not everybody does. I can figure out how to feed my family when groceries get low, not everybody can. I can afford to provide levels of education and entertainment and care for my kids that not everybody can.
And so I hope that we can hold onto that understanding and start to strip away at some of the things in our country that really do feel like a democratic government functioning more like a monarchy, all of this fancy stuff, while people are enduring, all kinds of things all over the country. And I feel like Joe binds a really good person to usher in a new way on those topics.
[00:31:00] Sarah: [00:31:04] The intensity of the summer and the protests and even the conventions to a certain extent is really where I started to run out of margin. Like it just, it felt like we did have options. I think the summer felt the most normal for me, of all the time this year. Like, because there was just so many outside options, I felt like I saw my friends the most.
I felt like the kids and I got out the most, but it still started to, you know, the summer is always a difficult time with the kids being home and like, piling up the early months of the spring on the summer is where I really started to run out of runway to a certain extent. And, you know, we went to the beach at one point and that was a nice sort of moment to disconnect, but like when I look back on it and I think like we were still just dealing [00:32:00] with the ramp up to the election.
So much of Donald Trump's chaos and drama, like never letting up feeling like the, the fall was coming and I th when I think back, I think of like September, October, November the fall, like the gut punch, the shock of spring was hard. But the fall felt like just being like kicked when you were already down, like we are all so low on any sort of reserves or margin or resources or patience.
And it just felt like the hits kept coming really badly, especially, you know, we had the terrible wildfires in California. Those apocalyptic orange skies were, you know, awful and scary and I think all of us were so [00:33:00] taken aback by that happening and the lack of any sort of response coming from the white house.
We of course had Ruth Bader Ginsburg dying which really to me like that, that might be the moment that lives with me for a long time after this year is over, is we had, we're going to dinner with a friend. We were really excited. You know, it felt like, like with the election and everything going on, like we could see the end. I felt comfortable that Donald Trump was going to lose. It felt like people were seeing the matrix to a certain extent.
And I will never forget my friend coming in and saying Ruth died. And I'm like, what, what do you mean? And then like, just. It felt really scary and really shocking and I just, the weeks from her death until [00:34:00] really the beginning of December, just were between the president getting COVID and that debate, that debate awful, awful debate of performance. It just felt horrific. Like those two, those, you know, two and a half months, three months just we're truly, truly awful.
Beth: [00:34:23] I think that period for me felt like I was frozen. I did not want to go anywhere, whether it be a restaurant or a store or to the beach, like we always do. So we didn't, we didn't, we just didn't go anywhere.
Chad did all the shopping for us. I met my friends outside to like sit on porches and individual lawn chairs far away from each other. I mean, I just felt really frozen. And I think that part of it was that I had so present in my mind what happens to my mom if she gets this. And so the best I could do was just be still and hope that my being still helped her far [00:35:00] away not get it.
I think, I did go see my niece when she was born and now I'm so grateful that I did, because I don't think that that trip would be wise today. But other than that, I really kept it inside and a small circle of people. And I think part of that too, was just feeling this rush socially and culturally and organizationally of, well, this has just gone on for so long. We've got to get things back on track.
You know, people were answering emails more and sending more and scheduling meetings and there was just this sense of like, we, we gotta be done with this. And, and I knew and could feel in every cell, we are so not done with this, and it is going to cost us so much to behave as though we are.
And yet we are anyway, and there's nothing that I can do about it. And, and so that was, it was really a dark [00:36:00] period for me too. And I'm not sure I'm out of that period yet because I'm looking at the winter, knowing how difficult it's going to be, even as I feel confidence about the way the vaccine trials are proceeding and approvals and that, you know, as we're getting into distribution of vaccines, I feel, I feel confident about all of that.
But the weather and the exhaustion that everyone's feeling, I'm just, I still feel a little like maybe if I'm just really still, at least I'm not contributing to the problem and I can't seem to unfreeze myself. And that, that is in my jaw, you know, it's, it's just everywhere for
Sarah: [00:36:37] me. Well, I think like so many of us, I put so much on the election. I, you know, I do better when there's something for me to look forward to. I'm um, this is some clarity I've gained through 2020 is that I really like anticipation. I really use that to in many ways, distract [00:37:00] myself from grief or fear or frustration that I'm feeling in the present moment. You know, of like I'm a project person.
I like to look forward. I like to kind of solve problems and I like that forward momentum and you know, any forward momentum we got in 2020 was full of dread. And so I think the forward momentum I did focus on was the election. Like, if we can just get through that, if we can just get on the other side of this and Joe Biden can win.
And in, in, I think one of the, like, most, not unexpected, but most brutal turns of 2020, like we were robbed of that relief. Like, yes, I know people danced in the streets when they called it on Saturday and I am happy for those people. I did not have any dancing in the streets here in my hood, but, and I didn't feel like, I didn't trust it.
I didn't feel it. I couldn't even let myself be excited or happy and still can't to a certain extent. It's like I get little bubbles of relief and little glimpses of what [00:38:00] this is going to be like, but he's so toxic. And he continues to just smash and grab and smash and grab and smash and grab and to escalate the rederick.
I'm worried so much about violence that like, I can't even let that release and relief come, not until an integration day, that you know, It was a combination of the disappointment that it wasn't just a blue tsunami. And that even though we succeeded at the presidency and where it was, we're in so many ways, it's the most important one that I couldn't even like feel it.
I couldn't even be happy about it because I think, you know, 2020 is like, you can't even try, you don't trust yourself. You don't trust yourself to react. You don't trust yourself to sort of feel it and check it off the list and maybe that's the right thing. I mean, I think part of the reason this episode is important is like, I don't trust, like I don't trust that instinct to like check this list off and move on.
I just think we're going to [00:39:00] have to be processing and dealing with the lessons from 2020 for so long and, you know, I think feeling like that hard work in front of us is part of it too. And trying to rise to that challenge as opposed to just being like, wanting to curl up in a ball, which is definitely part of my instinct is it's this, this tension that's like constantly lives.
And it was so intense, particularly in like October. I mean, maybe the only, the other moment that I, that will stay with me is the moment where my husband woke me up and said the president and the first lady of COVID, I think that might be the only movement, only moment in this entire year, where I was like super plugged into cable news.
I didn't even do that after election day, but like I downloaded CNN on my phone and was watching him leave the white house cause I thought, is he going to die? Like what is happening? And it just felt like that we were just being so tossed around by the chaos of this presidency and the chaos of the pandemic and the [00:40:00] chaos of this just historical moment.
It felt scary and frightening and frustrating and angering. And it just, it was, and I think you're right. I don't think I'm over it yet. I don't think I've really let all those moments, because I think at the end of the day, I mean, what we're talking about is we just feel powerless. I think that's the theme of 2020 in so many ways. Like we just, we feel powerless and I've worked really hard, not to feel hopeless, but I struggled with that in october and November, for sure.
Beth: [00:40:32] I think that the hopelessness for me and I, I don't feel hopeless, but that temptation to hopelessness that is really difficult to chase off right now for me, comes in seeing how in a year, where everything has changed in so many ways, there are pieces that seem immovable.
And some of those pieces are the most [00:41:00] counterproductive and yet they seem the most immovable. And so I don't understand all of the kind hearted, good reasonable people in my life who love Donald Trump, being with him on fighting about masks, even as I know how confusing the public health messaging on masks has been.
It's just surprising to me that, that we're so immovable that we will take public health practices and, and see them in our red versus blue lens. It is shocking to me, the level of reaction that I've had about the president getting COVID and receiving experimental treatment before it was available to other people and being able to recover so quickly and move on and that happening to person after person in his orbit and feeling this sense that like, wow, You know, the aristocrats in our country, our version [00:42:00] of the top cast is getting a different kind of healthcare than everybody else.
And it's the same disease. This isn't even like different diseases affect different populations. It's the same thing and they're getting different treatment. And then I was reading this piece from Josh Barrow and Business Insider, we can't link it because it's behind a paywall, but Josh Barrow was talking about reasons to be optimistic about next year.
And he was saying, the vaccine is coming. We can't even measure what it's going to be like to just have a normal president again, how much of a relief that's going to be? But he used this phrase when he was talking about the economy that took my breath away and I'm going to date myself. Some of you won't get this reference, but he said our economy has basically done a mass Susie Orman.
If you don't know who Susie Orman is, she wears colorful jackets and tells you that you can have a million dollars if you'll stop drinking Starbucks, basically. And, and that is such a perfect description for the economy, [00:43:00] right? We have stopped going to restaurants. We've stopped taking vacations. Like all those things that Susie Orman would tell you are extras and detract from your long-term savings goals, we're not doing.
And massive amounts of money have been pumping through the stock market. It's unbelievable to look at what happens in the stock market every day right now. And that split screen has brought me back into that temptation toward hopelessness because seeing how steadily money is held onto at the highest levels of our society, when the need is so clear and obvious and the reason for the need is so clear and obvious.
This is not, you know, people want to live off the government instead of work, people want to work. People are risking their health to protest so they can work. No, and we're not, and we're still unwilling to get that aid to them. And, and lots of people are deciding instead, [00:44:00] let me buy a few more shares of whatever cause that's looking really great right now.
I mean, And listen, this is new thinking for me, this is not baked into my political philosophy. And it's a way of talking that I never thought I'd hear from myself, but it just seems so clear to me in this year and the way that we are still, you know, you and I talked about like the scariest thing here is not, if everything changes, it's if nothing changes and we just kind of go on, and that power of inertia through this has been overwhelming to me.
Sarah: [00:44:33] I do think we're past that moment. I remember us having that conversation in the spring like what if we just go back and I don't think that's available to us anymore. I think that that ship has sailed even though, you know, I think that so much of what Joe Biden is trying to perpetuate or sort of make people feel is like, we're going to just get back to normal.
But I think like you can't unsee, you can't unsee that the inequity within our education system is pretty simple. [00:45:00] It's the systems linked to property taxes. We all see that now. At least I think a lot of people do that. There's problems in the education system. There's an equity that we're not going to educate ourselves out of racism.
Like that's not the answer to every, every problem in our system is like, we'll just unlock the past education and that will solve everything because education has its own problems. And I think that there is a sense of like, we're not going back to everybody has to come to the office. Like, I think that ship has sailed the idea of like now that we have Twitter and Facebook and Google and all these companies saying you can work from home indefinitely.
Like, we're not going back, like so much of the real estate that revolves around office space. Like that's changed forever. So I think there's an aspect of this. It's like, we can't unsee it. We can't unfeel it, we can't undo it. But you know, what's hard is that we need to heal from this moment and also find the reserves to fight for the solutions we now know we need and I think that's, what's so difficult.
In the face of, you know, the other [00:46:00] sort of theme throughout this year, as we look back on it to me is the just conspiracy theories and misinformation. And just, you know, even to the point of like Buzzfeed calling Q Anon mass delusions. Like, you know, we're talking about this as the, the one narrative of the pandemic is everybody gaining clarity, but the tension, the paradox, the flip side of that is that at the same time, millions of Americans are choosing to ignore reality and to believe misinformation, to adopt based on the leadership coming from our president, a version of the world that does not exist, that is not based in fact. And I think that's the other sort of hard thing, when you look back on this year and you can see that thread throughout
Beth: [00:46:49] well, and when you talk about what we're not going back on, there are some real downsides to that too. I mean, I don't know that we ever have another normal election. I [00:47:00] don't know that we ever have another normal Republican leadership approach and maybe on the democratic side too. And they're just things that have been altered politically that absent a strong bipartisan consensus, which seems impossible in and of itself, right, will be very hard to work our way out of now.
I hope always that we can do that and I hope that with a little bit of hindsight, we can get enough people on the same page to say like, Hey, this. We don't want these kinds of questions anymore. And, and around the conspiracy theory oriented stuff and also some of the things that are just process things.
All this confusion and obfuscation and misdirection from the Trump campaign about Pennsylvania happened because some counties gave people a chance to cure their ballots and others didn't. Well, that's a thing that I imagined Pennsylvania is going to fix, [00:48:00] right?
So there are, there are little things like that, that, that I think will help but we, there's going to be like so many waves of all of the things we've been living in. I mean, you just, just the separation of children from their parents at the border, that's going to present new crises over time. I have no doubt about it.
And so even as you think, well, we've got to get through all of this and heal and marshall our energy to work on the big issues. It's not like we're going to just get to work on the big issues because what's happened is going to have a long tail on multiple fronts and new things will happen. And that to me is the hard part of being a person.
You know, Chad was kind of disagreeing with me about my Christmas card approach, because I was trying to acknowledge the year and not just be like Merry Christmas from a Silver's. Yay. Everything's normal. And he said, you know, I kind of hate all this 2020 sucks [00:49:00] business because it's just a year. It's the CA it's not the calendar's fault.
He said like, this is the condition of being human. There are really hard periods. And there are really hard periods where things come in waves. I grew up among people who believe that death comes in threes, right. And this is kind of a global version of that. And he, and he has a point and so I try to tell myself, like, it's not just turning the page on the year and everything's going to be different and I can't be mad at the year. But I can also recognize this particular phase of being human is a lot and it will change all of us.
Sarah: [00:49:38] Well, and again, I don't, I do want to recognize the bright spots, particularly surrounding the election. The turnout was unbelievable. Watching people so dedicated to voting that they would wait hours in line is not something I thought I would witness in my [00:50:00] lifetime, the level of activism, the level of people that just made wrote card after card and postcard and letter to swing votes, the people who, um, just really dedicated their lives to this election.
And to turning the tide from the candidates to the grassroots organizers, to the volunteers, to the voters was something to behold. And it was, I hate that Donald Trump has through his refusal to concede, soaked up so much of the energy that we should be dedicating to recognizing that this was a free and fair election.
And that millions and millions of Americans participated in it and that is fantastic and that is wonderful and you know, that is an incredibly bright spot in the midst of an incredibly difficult election.
Beth: [00:50:53] There've been true acts of patriotism and generosity and care all throughout this year that I'll [00:51:00] always remember too.
I think it's, it's important to reflect on that. I think that just within my family, I understand my children very differently. I understand myself as a parent very differently. I value my marriage even more than I did coming into this pandemic, seeing the partnership that Chad and I've been able to have through this, I value our partnership even more because doing what we do this year has been so strange and challenging.
And I feel like every step of the way our values have been the same about it. And that is so precious to me, that our audience has hung with us through this year means a lot to me. So it is not that everything about 2020 sucks.
Sarah: [00:51:39] I mean, heck we celebrated our 500th episode, that was amazing.
Beth: [00:51:42] We did, we did and, and I really am excited about next year. And so I don't want to, I want to be vulnerable about my grief and fears while also being [00:52:00] clear about my optimism and gratitude.
Sarah: [00:52:04] Well, and I just want to say, because I know I need to hear it, and so I'm assuming that many of you need to hear it, we did the best we could. We all did the best we could this year.
We tried, we failed, we yelled, we lost, we went for the stupid wal as Aaron Moon says. We had great connections over zoom. We had terrible connections over zoom. Uh, we innovated, we found new ways to fundraise and to teach and to congregate and to worship and we did the best we could. And I think that at a certain point, you just have to let the year be what it is, and it was hard and it was difficult, but we all did the best that we could.
So some of the inspiration for this [00:53:00] episode also came from Catherine Andrews Sunday Soother, which you guys should all check out, she's fantastic, and she suggested writing a grief letter to 2020 to just get out your emotion towards this year. I'm sure Chad would not love the idea of personifying a calendar year. No, try to let her to it, but I like it.
Beth: [00:53:16] That's not writing a grief letter, nope.
Sarah: [00:53:18] But I love some of her prompts that she suggests while you're writing the letter, we'll put the link in the show notes, but one of them is, now that you are leaving, I feel... So, Beth, how, how do you complete the sentence to 2020 now that you are leaving, I feel-
Beth: [00:53:32] Now that you are leaving, I feel, I really just want to put the Facebook status it's complicated here because I do, I do feel grateful for what I've learned this year. I also feel like I'm not quite removed enough to know how I feel. I still feel stuck, honestly, because I feel that bridge [00:54:00] from December to January, winter has become a thing in my mind more than the calendar, I guess.
But on the whole, I will say, I feel, I feel resolute. I know we can handle hard things here in this house. I know we can handle hard things as a people. We don't always handle them well. When you said everybody's done their best, I thought everybody, I don't know. Don't know that everybody did their best, but I feel really certain about tapping into my own reserves.
I feel very clear about what's important to me about 2021, as far as I can see it and I feel a sense of resilience in myself and the people around me. That was a long answer. It's complicated.
Sarah: [00:54:51] Now that 2020 is leaving, I feel sore. I feel sore and spent. I [00:55:00] feel much like I felt in those first few days after giving birth, like just depleted. Wiser for sure. Grateful as you do after every hard thing? Definitely. But sore and spent an exhausted. And it feels very much like those, those thin places, those liminal spaces to me right now, where in this foggy way, things are clear, which is a paradox, I know, but it is what it is and that, and that's how this year, particularly as the year comes to a long feels to me, it feels like that thin space.
I feel like, you know, because it's beaten me down a little bit. Like I have that glimpse of [00:56:00] that thin place between here and the present, between the past and the present, between the spiritual and the physical. You know, I just feel like that, that I'm living in that space right now, but it is it's exhausting. I feel, I feel sore and exhausted and really, um, spent.
So we invite you to write your own letter, if you want to. We hope that this conversation has opened up a little space in your life to just begin to process this incredible year, that we will never forget, that we won't stop talking about on January 1st, 2021, that we will tell [00:57:00] our grandchildren about one day.
And we are so proud and honored to have shared this incredible year with all of you, for all your support, for coming and dedicating hours of your life during this difficult year to listening to what we had to say about it. Um, that's a privilege that we never take lightly, in good years or bad.
So thank you for joining us here on Pantsuit Politics in 2020. Keep it nuanced, y'all. We'll see you in 2021.
Good episode!
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