We haven’t been thinking about the birth of a new dawn for a while. In the last 18 months we haven’t really allowed ourselves thoughts of hope let alone thoughts about a new dawn or that looks like. What it means for us and who we will be in this new dawn. We have been stuck in what seems like a never ending pandemic. We keep thinking about the things we’ve lost. We think the people we have lost, those that are lost in a battle with the darkness. We think about the lost jobs, homes and possessions.

As we settle in for the long haul, the material losses seem less important and it’s the places and friendships that are lost and all the things that go with those that seem to haunt us the most. We think about the broken hearts that seem like they will never heal. Looking to the future does prove really hard when there seems to be very little hope for it.

However, lately I have been reminded that hope is one of the most glorious things that a person can have. It fills you up and allows you to float like air, bringing light and freedom, but it is also one of the most dangerous things to give a person. Hope holds the power of a person’s spirit and decides whether it stands or breaks.

I think about the new dawn now differently, I think about it with a childlike hope and expectation, which perhaps is the most dangerous thing of all. However, in a time where the future is bleak and uncertain, when the very idea of the future seems terrifying and almost nonexistent now. Shouldn’t we have a little dangerous hope? Isn’t it an exciting prospect, a mystery to uncover, a beautiful never-ending puzzle of wonder? A place where broken hearts will be healed and the scar tissue of this pandemic will tell a story of resilience and survival.

It is nineteen minutes past midnight on the 3rd of May 2021, I am sitting on my bed after binging the sixth season of Downton Abbey. I am on the precipice of something amazing. I am anxiously awaiting the dawn to break because this is the day I begin something new, I begin again. I’m looking to the dawn with opportunity and more grace. Understanding privilege and being grateful for that privilege and what it will bear.

In the final episode of the season of Downton Abbey that I have just completed, the characters toast the new dawn. Though it was an episode about entering a new calendar year and leaving the trappings of the year before behind them. They weren’t just toasting to the new year but also the dawning of a new age. I believe what will happen for us when the pandemic is well and truly behind us will be the dawning of a new age for humanity, a future worth working towards earning. We should feel lucky and be honoured that we are afforded the privilege to deserve this new dawn.

Often we forget that we need to earn our place in the future, that is not always guaranteed. So we need to be better at creating hope. We must be better guardians of hope. We need to stop being afraid of hope and thinking that its dangers outweigh its glory. In fact we must begin to embrace the dangers of hope if we are to earn our place in the future and stand in the sun as the new dawn arrives.

Today is the beginning of a great big adventure for me, and I am entering it with an unbridled amount of hope. What a thrill to live so dangerously!