You deserve a medal!

If you have made it to the end of 2020 with a sense of optimism and hope, you deserve a medal.

If you adapted your routines, your habits, your ways of engaging with others in whatever way you thought best, to survive 2020, you deserve a medal.

If you fought off despair, depression, loneliness and fear through this year, and managed to get up and go on, you deserve a medal.

If you were able to maintain some semblance of normality, to do the necessary to get by, even when it seemed pointless, you deserve a medal.

If you had your life turned upside-down through changes to your living and working arrangements, but figured out how to face each new day, you deserve a medal.

If you were separated from people, places and even pets that mattered to you, and managed get on with things, when you just wanted to sit down and cry, you deserve a medal.

If you were able to stay compassionate and support others, even when you felt bewildered and in need of support yourself, you deserve a medal.

This medal is for all the ordinary heroes of 2020, every individual who faced the year with courage and fortitude, and made it to today. May the resilience you cultivated in 2020 improve your life in the future and may 2021 be kinder to us all.