Some New Year SMSs: 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018 & 2017

Each year, I send an SMS congratulating the new year to my friends and some acquaintances exactly when the new year arrives (where I am). Each SMS contains a poem or a poetic/lyric text whose thematic varies from year to year. This tradition of my own goes back to several years ago—although I can't remember when I started. Here is a compendium of the SMSs dating back to 2017.

2021

2020 went under,
2021 goes over.

Will this 2021 let us
emerge to the overworld?
Or will it keep us
locked in the underworld?

2020 undertook us,
it beat us down;
this 2021, we’ll rise up,
we will overtake…
            …ourselves,
                        …circumstances,
                                    …and this new year!

2020

Another loop
in the cycle;
one counter restarts,
another adds one
and equals 2x20.
¡Feliz 2020!

2019^*

El 2018 ha muerto. La mitad de los compromisos incumplidos, la otra mitad olvidados y el año nuevo te pilló otra vez. Que disfrutar y ser feliz no esté entre los muchos compromisos que incumplirás este 2019. Urte berri on!

2018

2017 was prime,
of 2018,
only its half is;
let it, this new year,
the other way around be,
that what 2017 gave
the half of what 2018 will give becomes.

2017^**,***

As Sisyphus, each year, we carry our rock so we forget it when we reach the top and we start again to carry it up. Happy 2017 and that in this new year the rock becomes lighter!

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1. The original of this message was in Spanish. However, a translation was appended to it:

   2018 has died. Half of the resolutions unfulfilled, the other half forgotten, and the new year caught you again. That to enjoy and to be happy will not find themselves among the broken resolutions of 2019. Happy New Year!

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2. Technically, this was a WhatsApp message not an SMS. ↩

3. Este texto cuenta con traducción al castellano:

   Tal cual Sísifo, cada año cargamos nuestra roca para después olvidarla al llegar arriba y empezar a subirla de nuevo. ¡Feliz 2017 y que en este nuevo año sea la roca más ligera!

   ↩