Well, that was unexpected.
When we said '2020, do your worst', this wasn't exactly what we meant!
Twelve months ago, when we were looking to the year ahead, I don't think anyone could've imagined where the year would take us. How could we have done? Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that we'd be living through a deadly global pandemic. Not in my life time, not in the Western world and definitely not in suburban England. Things like that happened in sci-fi novels, and over-imaginative disaster films created on Hollywood sets, not in real life. It couldn't possibly happen in reality.
Or so I thought.
How wrong I was!
That shit got real really fast.
It was without a doubt one of the worst, most surreal years in living memory for almost all of us. It felt like we were acting a script for a disaster movie, but the threat to our lives, being locked down, shops running out of food and supplies, and people dying in their millions wasn't so entertaining in real life. It was worrying and frightening, stressful, humbling, and down right heartbreaking.
It was bizarre to see how quickly the world changed from the vibrant one we knew to one governed by restrictions, fear, and illness. How quickly we got used to our new normal of staying home, wearing face masks in public, staying at least two metres apart (or miles apart from family and friends we couldn't see all year), and sanitising our hands because our lives might literally have depended on it. It was a lot to deal with and get used to, but we all handled it like pros.
Admittedly, spending months on lockdowns and tiered restrictions was probably much easier on me than it was on most of you. I'd already been living my own personal lockdown since I developed chronic pain and illness again in 2011, so I'd long since gotten used to staying home most of the time, and had already learned how to occupy my time at home years before the first lockdown began. I consider myself lucky that lockdown life wasn't a culture shock for me. I didn't have to get used to confinement or feel bored as I learnt how to fill my time from home or feel sad about never seeing family and friends. It already was my life and I'd already gone through the adjustment period, so it gave me one less thing to adjust to in 2020. For once, being chronically ill has it's advantages.
That's not to say that I didn't find the lockdowns and restrictions hard at times. There were days I was overwhelmed with cabin fever like everyone else. For some reason, being told you can't go out is harder to accept than knowing you're physically unable to go out. I had to get used to spending more time with my family at home with nowhere to escape. (An introvert's nightmare). My medical care was on hold for most of the year, and my referral to pain management postponed. I didn't have occasional trips to the supermarket or shops to break up confinement for most of the year, which always kept me going through chronic illness life. I didn't even have daily walks to look forward to. In fact, I didn't leave the house for seven whole months from February to September (partly because I was shielding, and partly because my health was so bad I couldn't get down the stairs for months). I can count on two hands how many times I ventured out during the entire year. It's the most I've stayed at home since the year I became housebound. I made the best of it, but I'm not going to lie, it was hard.
There was the stress of food and medicine shortages at the start of the pandemic; I remember scouring Amazon Pantry for tins of soup in March. My anxiety was all over the place for a while as I worried about my family catching and dying from the virus. I became one of those people who disinfects packages coming in to the house, which I've continued to do for peace of mind despite parcels supposedly carrying little risk. I never thought I'd be one of those people! I learnt to wear a face covering in public like second nature, keep as far away from other people as possible, and anti-bac my hands more than I've ever done in my life.
Who'd have thought that the must-have fashion accessory of the year would be a face covering, and the most-needed beauty product of 2020 would be anti-bacterial hand gel??
As well as being a rough year for the world, it was also another rough year for my health. My Arthritis and Fibromyalgia both worsened again, and flared more often, which was probably at least partially because of the added stress. The Arthritis in my knees and feet got so bad, there were weeks when I could barely bare weight on my legs at all, and I couldn't get down the stairs for months. My chronic back and spinal pain was also pretty hard to take at times, and my Fibro fatigue got much worse. I lost count how many times I dozed off while I was in the middle of something (most days), and how many times I woke up in the morning feeling more exhausted than before I went to sleep. I rolled with the punches and got through it a day at a time, but it was harder without regular medical appointments, and breaks from captivity to look forward to and keep me sane. It was surreal going from early February to November without a single medical appointment, when I'd normally have at least a couple of appointments a month, but also kind of nice to have a break from doctor's surgeries and hospitals after nine years of it all.
It was a year of negatives, but I feel fortunate that it wasn't a devastating year for my family personally, when millions of people around the world weren't so lucky. We all made it through unscathed. Nobody in my family developed Covid or got sick, and nobody lost their jobs or income, homes or businesses. We're all still safe, and that's all that really matters. I'm grateful for that.
There were no big adventures or achievements in 2020. We chose to cancel our holiday to Cornwall to keep ourselves safe, and a couple of concerts I'd been looking forward to got rescheduled again and again. It was disappointing, but I'd prefer disappointment to catching Covid or putting my family at risk.
I took a socially-distanced day trip to The Cotswold Wildlife Park in the autumn, and paid a quick visit to the Appleton Christmas Barn in December, which were the only two fun visits I took during the entire year. The literal handful of other times I left the house were just for trips to the supermarket or doctor's surgery.
2020 was all about appreciating the little things in life more than ever before. I made time to read almost every day and finished thirty-one books. I got addicted to Animal Crossing New Horizons and spent more hours playing on it every day than I'd care to admit. It was a great help to my anxiety, especially at the start of the pandemic, and a fun way to socialise with friends since we couldn't do so in the real world. I cross stitched a little, but not nearly enough. I watched a lot of movies and TV shows. I spent time with my dog and my family. I was also able to see a little of my sister and brother-in-law who moved back from Germany to our hometown at the end of the summer.
I saw the world through new eyes, and appreciated the little things more than ever before, like sunny days, pretty sunsets, watching squirrels foraging in the garden and red kites gliding overhead (from my bedroom window), having enough food in the cupboards, the first taste of foods we couldn't get hold of for months, cuddles with my dog, good books, creative hobbies, and conversations with friends. The little things became the big things, and often became the highlights of the day.
One thing I do regret about 2020 is how little I blogged. In fact, I blogged less than any year since I began this blog in 2012. It wasn't for lack of trying, but I just wasn't in the right head space to get the words out, and I struggled to take the photos I needed because my chronic pain was so bad. I worked hard to make up for it in December, and at least finished the year off strong with lots of fun, festive posts. I hope I can improve on last year's blogging tally, and create more content in 2021. I'm not going to make any promises, and I'm not going to pressure myself, but I'm going to do my best, and we'll see what happens.
Looking ahead, life doesn't seem so hopeful right now. 2021 hasn't got off to the best start with Covid deaths and cases rising at a scary rate, restrictions tightening, and most of us going in to another lockdown, so it's hard to find much hope or enthusiasm for the year ahead. I want to believe that life will start getting better this year now that vaccines are being rolled out, but right now it feels like it never will. I'm just going to hold on to that little bit of hope that things will get better, and maybe a year from now, life will be a little more 'normal' again. It might take a bit longer, but we will get there. At least we know from history that pandemics always end eventually.
It might be another tough year for all of us, but I'm going to concentrate on getting through it one day at a time, and do my best to enjoy the little things as much as possible. I'm going to read and craft, blog, play Animal Crossing, watch movies, spend time with my family, appreciate nature, and try to get out of the house as often as I can. I'm going to look for the positives in my daily life as much as possible, appreciate what I have, and hope for a more positive year than the one we've left behind.
I hope it's a more positive year for you, too.
Here's to a safe and happy, Covid-free year ahead for all of us.
2021, please don't do your worst.
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