The Freshman 20.

Do you remember yours? Those infamous extra pounds that suddenly found their way onto your frame during your freshman year in college?

I remember mine. I haven’t given them much thought in the nearly four decades since initially collecting them, but early morning inclinations have taken me there … back to that place of gathering pounds.

The Freshman 20.

Extra weight. Not anticipated. Not welcomed. Not particularly fetching.

Looking back, I should have seen them coming; after-all, getting heavier begins to feel … well … heavier over time. A quick glance in the mirror or a stepping into my clothes should have been good indicators of my freshman folly. Still and yet, I barely noticed them. They simply slipped in over the course of a year, one late-night, pizza delivery at a time.

Forty years ago, it was easier for me to bounce back from The Freshman 20. These days, not so much.

These days. The accumulated poundage of my freshman year has now been replaced by the accumulated poundage of a weightier year … this year – 2020.

Extra weight. Not anticipated. Not welcomed. Not particularly fetching.

Unlike the folly of my freshman year in college, I am quicker to look into the mirror these days; I’m stepping into my clothes, and I am realizing that the recent, personal baggage I’ve been collecting is a clear indicator of the storm that’s been unleashing its fury upon the earth for these past seven months.

I’m not alone.

We’re all heavier now than we were at the beginning of 2020. Heart, mind, body, soul and spirit. We’ve never been so thickened by a year. As the losses have accumulated on the pages of the calendar, so has our poundage. Day after day; week after week; month after month. The scale ticks higher; the clothes get tighter. The burden grows greater.

With labored steps and labored breaths, we awaken with the dawn without embracing its warmth; we’ve forgotten what it is to move lightly through our days. Instead, our steps are heavy, each one of them reverberating with the witness of a costly season.

I don’t imagine it will soon be over – this year of unwanted accumulation. Something tells me that our scales will get heavier before getting lighter. It seems that some years have to run their course before reversing course … before getting us back to a place of leanness that better enables us to embrace the dawn.

But as we tarry for these leaner years, let us not forsake our mirrors. Let us look outwardly and inwardly at the burden that’s been added to our souls. Sometimes, the extra pounds are the best indicators of what needs trimming. And if that’s the case – if a temporary addition ultimately leads to a healthy and final subtraction – then perhaps all is not loss with The Freshman 20 – this, our 2020.

Perhaps there is gain – an eternal goodness that will outweigh the harshness that we now hold as baggage in these jars of clay.

That is my prayer. That is my hope. That is the warmth of this dawn embracing my soul. May it embrace yours as well. As always…

Peace for the journey,