Hello! Happy “Song 7 of 2020101 Day!”
It’s called “One Thread.”
- Click here to stream or download it, exclusively on Bandcamp.
- Read below — or at 2020101.net — about the inspiration for the song, which emerged from our community’s shared experiences of 2020.
hanging on
If it wasn’t obvious to us before, our story collection has made it clear that, for a lot of people, 2020 was a hard year.
It was a year which left many people feeling like they were just barely hanging on.
Like they were living on a razor’s edge.
It was honestly kind of tough to read about and absorb the energy of people’s struggles this last year. And, also … we feel honored to be witness to their experience; and we feel grateful to know that we haven’t been alone in the ways we’ve struggled, too. Stories are powerful like that.
People shared with us about …
… how they felt their emotions being much closer to the surface than they were used to.
… how small things that didn’t go quite right could result in an unexpected flood of tears.
… how their close relationships often suffered from depleted tanks of resilience.
… how small stresses felt bigger.
People told us …
… about how the isolation of social distancing really got to them.
… about how they craved hugs.
… about how they desperately missed time with friends and family.
For people who live with anxiety, or PTSD, or myriad other psychological and emotional challenges, the drumbeat of stimuli from the stresses of the year were compounding factors in the maintenance of their mental health. Rather than trying to thrive in this time, for manyit became enough just to survive.
2020 seemed to be especially difficult for empathetic people, too, who — on top of taking care of their own emotional wellbeing — had to figure out strategies to manage the worry they felt for others and for the world itself.
And we heard from several people who celebrated the fact that they stayed sober in 2020, leaning extra hard on recovery tools, like acknowledging what was in their power to change and what was not. And, most of all … by taking this extraordinarily hard year just one day at a time.
So … here’s to all of you …
who made it through,
who are making it through,
one day at a time,
hanging on for dear life.
We’re so glad you kept yourselves tethered.
If you have a story to share about barely hanging on in 2020, please email it to Jamie at jamie@misfitstars.com.
Throughout this 101-day-long project, we are creating a living, interactive document of people’s experience of 2020. Those stories, and all the songs from 2020101, will live on at 2020101.net.