Omicron and the unending pandemic. Blistering-cold temperatures. The ceaseless rise in overdose deaths.

Not even Wordle could save January 2022. There’s no good way to say it: This month has been long and lousy.

But it hasn’t all been bad news. Even though for many it has been the hardest time since we first heard of COVID, there are plenty of reasons to believe it will get better, and that the world can be a beautiful, loving, caring place.

If you’ve read our newspapers over the last month, for instance, you’d learn that:

DREAMS REALLY DO COME TRUE: Proving that your goals are never out of reach, Krysta Porter of Unity in December became, at 23, the interim athletic director at Mount View Junior and Senior High School, where she graduated in 2016.

Porter earned her spot. She graduated from Thomas College in 2019 with a degree in sports management and minor in coaching, then got her master’s in business administration in 2020. She listened to and learned from coaches and administrators in her life, and now she’s doing the work she always wanted to do, not only in her home state but at her alma mater.

“It’s what I’ve looked forward to since I was a sophomore in high school,” Porter told Dave Dyer of the Kennebec Journal/Morning Sentinel. “It’s crazy that I get to do my dream job.”

It may be crazy, but it’s reality, all because Porter knew what she wanted and followed the steps to get there.

SOMETIMES, FATE IS ON OUR SIDE: In the decisive, panicked moments after a man had his arm severed at the shoulder in an apparent saw accident in Lewiston, he had the good fortune to run into the right two public works employees. Because they were arborists, they were trained to use tourniquets to stop bleeding – think of that next time you’re putting together a list of dangerous jobs.

“It had to be divine intervention,” the workers’ boss told Mark LaFlamme of the Sun Journal, “because two of my best guys just happened to be there sanding sidewalks. It couldn’t have been better guys for this kind of situation. I really hope it made a difference for that guy.”

It seems to; he is reportedly recovering in the hospital.

NO SPOT IS HOPELESS: It didn’t look good for the loons, trapped as they were in open parts of Kezar Lake in Lovell, surrounded by ice and unable to take off.

It’s the kind of situation that has claimed an untold number of loons, whose population in Maine can’t really take too much more loss.

Enter the Biodiversity Research Institute in Portland. Called by two birders who saw the trapped loons, three biologists from the institute took a kayak and inflatable raft over to Lovell, where in an exciting rescue relayed by Press Herald reporter Deirdre Fleming, they saved from certain doom those three birds plus two others caught elsewhere on the lake.

Now when lake residents hear the haunting, beautiful call of the loon at night, they’ll know who to thank.

YOU NEVER KNOW WHO’S GOING TO SHOW UP: If life, particularly through the last two years, seems monotonous, just look up – you might see the Stellar’s sea eagle.

Native to northern Asia and eastern Russia, this giant, rare bird somehow got to midcoast Maine, arriving in Georgetown in late December. It is the first ever sighted in Maine, and the first seen anywhere in the lower 48 states. Its appearance has drawn hundreds, if not thousands, of birders to the coast.

A seafaring raptor used to cold waters, the Stellar’s sea eagle seems to be doing fine, and it may stay a while.

Just when you think you’ve seen everything, a bird comes along and proves once again the grandeur and mystery of nature.

And finally,

IN MAINE, WE’RE ALL NEIGHBORS: Press Herald staff photographer Ben McCanna last week found a Go Pro camera buried in sand at Kettle Cove in Cape Elizabeth, then posted one of the camera’s photos to Twitter, hoping to find its owner.

And what do you know? In barely any time at all, the photo found its way to the feed of the subject’s friend’s mother.

What a great example of how Maine just isn’t that big.

Take heart knowing that everywhere you go, someone close to you is almost always close by.