2020 has indeed been a cruel year, for most of us. And while we wish upon the dropping ball of New Year's cleansing magic, the sky-high potential of what could-yet-be in 2021 remains the single greatest hope for an anxious nation.

There will be many sentiments written tonight in socially distanced Discord chats or uttered aloud at smaller-than-last-year's family/friend gatherings across the world expressing our collective disgust with a horrid 2020. "Good riddance" we will say with a heaping of humor and a heavy pour of rage. "Burn it all down" we will mock, toasting our digital cocktails via cold high-bandwidth. And we will mean it, in the moment, as we have more or less meant it all year long as we individually suffer another loss after another loss.

It's hard to ignore the losses. It's hard to stand back up just once after a crushing blow, let alone over and over again. I have been knocked down a lot this year. I have lost a great, great deal, though only in the superficial ways. I have not lost family, as many have, or friends. I had lost my health but I've found it again ... Outcomes far kinder than those suffered by millions more. I have lost only stuff, not people, and I have retained a lot as well — and even gained.

You, for example.

Tonight, it is commandingly important to me – imperiously important – that you understand on an atomic level just how precious you are to me.

I have not met you, save a shameful few, or spoken with you at any real length. I don't know your real name, or your birthday. I don't know your age, your race, your gender or your pronouns, or if you even care about any of that. I don't know if you're happy, or if you're alone, or if you're in pain. I hope not. I don't even know what country you live in. My knowledge of you can be summized by your bio on FurAffinity, which is all too true of me to you. We are strangers, the lot of us... will-o'-wisps in a digital forest. And yet, while I do not know you in any real way, you were there when I needed you.

You're always there.

The fandom, the artists, the followers, the commissioners, yes. All of that, but more than that — you the person, ... or you the furry if you prefer.

Though it may sound narrowly materialistic to admit that your comments, your faves, your occassional pokes on Telegram, and your commissions (THANK YOU so much for your commissions) are what have sustained me, you must realize it is so much deeper than that. Your comments and faves have lifted my spirits and your commissions have helped pay my bills, but that is just the beginning of what your community has healed of me, and I cannot thank you enough.

But when I've been dealt yet another blow and suffered yet another setback, it is this wonderful fandom that lifts me up. This strange, weird, passionate fandom.

So rather than hoping to burn down all that came with 2020, instead I raise my digital cocktail and I nod my toast to you, my fellow furries, my followers, my muses, my icons. My mysterious friends.

May your future days be bright, and your woes resolve. May your happiness expand, and your cup overflow. May you remain forever weird, and forever wonderful.

Thank you.
-KB