I don’t keep a scrapbook, but if I did, this untorn ticket stub is the only thing I’d put in it to symbolize 2020.  Scheduled for March 20, 2020, its abrupt cancellation with the promise of a reschedule was an early omen of all that was to come.

The NBA shut down the week before this concert was to have taken place.  Days later I was sent home from work with my laptop and assurances we’d be back in two weeks.

I haven’t seen the place since.

Mandy Moore never rescheduled.  The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust gave up in early November and refunded my money.

Goodbye 2020:  The Year that Didn’t Happen.

For some, 2020 has been marked by horrific loss—loss of a family member, a job, or a small business.  But for those of us lucky enough to have thus far avoided those fates, 2020 is going to be hard to remember.

I know what you’re thinking—how could we forget this unprecedented, crazy year?

But on the other hand, what is there to remember?  This is the year we didn’t go to concerts, or weddings, or dinners out with friends.  We didn’t celebrate birthdays or holidays together.  We didn’t go on vacation.  Sure, we Zoomed. 

But we all know deep down that Zoom doesn’t count.

“There was Trump and there was covid,” we’ll tell our great-grandkids about this year.  “And that’s all I remember.”

“But what did you do?” they’ll ask us.

“I have no idea,” we’ll say.

And isn’t it true already?  March seems so long ago and yet I cannot think of the things I’ve done in the past nine months.  I can only remember the things I didn’t do.

Five years from now, I won’t remember that I was ever planning to see Mandy Moore at all.

We’ll forget all our plans that never came to fruition.

I’ll bet you can’t even remember that when this all started you binged Tiger King.

Goodbye, 2020.  You won’t be missed and won’t you be remembered.

Here’s to 2021:  The Year of the Vaccine and the Roaring Twenties Redux.

See you then.