I’ve lost many friends over the years. Some of them are an email away from rekindling, others have reached the point of no return… If there’s something I learned in 2020, it’s the fact that even the worst damage is never permanent – until it is impossible to restore what’s forever gone. I felt incredibly fortunate that we’ve been able to share so many different moments in 2020. It offered me some insightful perspectives on the significance of relationships, while also revealing how important my friends and loved ones are to me, and how blessed I am to have them in my life. They’re all a refuge in their own way, a vivid demonstration of how priceless a simple moment may be, a reminder that amongst all things in life, a welcoming embrace has the incredible ability to heal several emotional wounds, even the oldest and the deepest ones. Until time brutally stops our motion and allows us to evaluate or reevaluate our destination, as much as the path we are on. Honesty is not as ruthless as illusions can be. It hurts, but it leads to forgiveness and pardon, which are not only healing but have the ability to transform us into the individuals we might have lost faith we’d ever become or never thought it was self-beneficial to be… Until it’s not only about you no more.

Therefore, 2020 has been that graceful to me. I had the wonderful opportunity to meet so many of you on the road and online. I could personally and collectively share all sorts of profound and emancipative emotions, be a part of the impactful resilience you showed me you had while you kept on confessing the “light” I couldn’t even see or perceive for my own life. I saw what looked like permanently fractured relationships be completely renewed. I managed my anxieties as I always have. I fought my darknesses the same way I’ll always have to do it. But if 2019 was a year of renaissance for me, 2020 has been one of restoration, with my family, my friends, my creative vision, my collaborators, and most of all, with who I am deep inside. After a lifelong resistance to expose myself and to reject any form of emotional intimacy, this year had me open up a little, not only through the security of my different creative endeavors, but in what I call “the real life”. Anyone who has ever experienced depression and desperation knows how disorienting living in bright lights is after having learned to maneuver in the bleakness of our own make-believe. It seems impossible to trust the essence of what our eyes can see after having spent time in the dark, no matter how long it’s been, no matter how joyful we might have become since then. Restoration is not a miracle pill. For some, it’s a process. For me, it’s a gift I offer myself as much as others… at least that’s what I decide to make out of it.