Can anybody else not quite believe the way 2020 has turned out? It seems like an age since I was drunkenly bellowing ‘Auld Lang Syne’ at midnight, through a mouthful of half eaten pork pie. It’s that moment we feel hopeful for the future, heightened by the buckets of champagne (hem hem £5 cava) that has been consumed in the run up to January 1st, secretly dreaming of how 2020 is going to be ‘my year.’
Well, my year shmy year is my extremely mature and sophisticated response to that. If this was a movie we’d find ourselves in Bridget Jones’ flat, draped over the sofa, covered in Ben and Jerry’s singing ‘All By Myself’, to mourn over forgotten diets, dysfunctional relationships and enormous spanx.
But this is bigger than Bridget and her underwear. We’ve seen global devastation. From Australian bush fires to the current Black Lives Matter movement. Oh yeah, and that whole global pandemic thing. And to think, there was a time when the world was obsessing over Harry and Megan leaving the Royal Family… Hello perspective…
We’ve experienced a life of lockdown filled with banana breads and zoom quizzes and never did I ever think I’d have a legitimate, law abiding reason to yell at someone for invading my personal space.
Its been tough to say the least. But for me, and I imagine many others, its been a time of reflection. Not just within myself but of the world we live in to see the importance of uncomfortable, but necessary, growth and change. I’ve always felt grateful, but its been a time I’ve come to realise just how unbelievably lucky I am for my circumstance.
Lucky to have family and friends, to have a healthy body and strong mind, to live in an environment where I feel safe and loved, to have my own space, to always have food, access to the countryside and technology to keep connected to those far away. And despite the dark and uncertain times, to always have the underlying sense of opportunity. Endless opportunity. I’ve come to realise that, that in itself, is like gold.
It would be easy to look back over the first half of 2020 and feel exhausted and frustrated. It would be kind of impossible not to, given the amount of changes and sacrifices we’ve all had to make to our everyday lives. But at the same time, I feel this overwhelming sense of progress and change. Change across the world and change for the better.
It’s like when you go through a bad break up. You knew the issues were there all along, but you turned a blind eye to them to avoid difficult conversations. You’re just trying to get your head around how different your life is going to be under a new circumstance. It’s scary and uncomfortable to be pushed into change.
But you can’t pretend things are perfect any longer. We’re back to good old Briget Jones and reach the moment our leading lady takes the leap of faith; quitting the mundane job and ditching her knob of a boyfriend, Daniel Cleaver. We learn that we had to go through the uncomfortable and scary process of change to get to a new, better beginning.
And that is my personification of 2020. We’ve been forced into seeing the issues with our underfunded NHS. We’ve been forced to stare into the eye of racism, that is as much of a global pandemic as covid-19. And we’ve been forced to stand together to decide that enough is enough.
Maybe 2020 won’t be the year we travelled to Bali or started a new career. But hopefully it’ll be the year we’ll look back and remember how we came together for a new, better future. It might be a while until we get there, but we’ve certainly started the process. Our flaws as a nation and worldwide have been highlighted. Flaws that we now understand must be addressed and changed.
I may not have achieved everything, or even anything, I set out to in 2020 so far. But I’ve learned so much about the world and what kind of person and impact I want to have in it. And if anything, being more educated and understanding triumphs over any activites ticked off a bucket list.
Ninetiesbaby Lifestyle Blogger 