………… 2020 in words and phrases………..
“Canceled,” “Postponed,” “Tested,” “Results,” Quarantine,” “Essential workers,” “Tik Tok,” “Unprecedented,” “Vaccine,” “Online,” “Virtual,” “Netflix,” & “Pandemic.” It was “Do you have your mask?” “stay 6 feet apart,” “Please send me the zoom code ASAP,” “It’s rescheduled until later,” & “Check your portal for results in 5 days.”
There is no question the past 365 days have been upsetting. Millions of people died from the deathly virus, lost their jobs, and were faced with the hardships of paying their months’ rent. Thousands of couples had to cancel their weddings, women were forced to deliver babies without any family in the room, and college students took classes from their parents’ basement for 8 months in a row. Depression, anxiety, and suicide rates were at a devastating high. It was the year that could have been. But it wasn’t.
The year of Wake-up Calls.
Is it possible, that through the COVID-19 pandemic there was just enough misery to force upon us a new level of awakening, of finding gratitude and joy in the simplest moments such as going to the grocery store safely?
Like many other college students, I had planned on studying abroad in Argentina for the fall semester. It has been a lifelong dream of mine to become fluent in Spanish, and after taking years of classes, I was ready to emerge fully. I had booked my flights to leave in July and met my homestay families through What’s Apps facetime calls, I could not have been more excited. I ended up spending the semester in San Diego taking all of my classes online with my two outstanding roommates. We spent our days on zoom and nights studying, playing Rubi cube, and making the same Gigi Hadid pasta recipe over and over. (Which by the way, if you haven’t tried yet, please make it.) For a while, the yoga studio I worked at was open and I was teaching classes. It felt like the only normal thing throughout my week, seeing my students and moving my body in a space that felt so familiar. Then San Diego moved into the purple phase, and the shutdowns started again.
The year of Patience.
The hard thing about being in college is the inconsistency of it all. Of living in a tiny place with strangers for a few months, then packing up everything, and coming back home, just to go back next year in a new space with new people. The thing about being in college while living at home is that you don’t have a place. You are too removed to have a permanent role living with your family, but not enough far enough removed that it is foreign. That’s how quarantine felt, foreign and far removed like I didn’t have much of a place no matter where I was.
When school started in the fall, I rode my bike on the bay every day before my classes started. Then my bike got stolen. So I got rollerblades to replace it. Then the wheels broke. So, I started running my neighbor’s service dog. And going on walks. Lots of walks.
I’m not going to say that I can come up with legitimate silver linings to COVID-19 because I feel that is naïve to say when people lost their lives and family members and loved ones. But I do think it is reasonable to assume that as a result of these months, humanity will- or at least should- become kinder as a whole. For now, I can just feel grateful that we will get through it. That we are getting through it. And we have done the best that we can.
The year of deep connection and personal growth.
It was receiving an email in May that study abroad programs were canceled. I was in the shampoo aisle of Target and told myself to just, let it go, because it wasn’t a big deal compared to all of the chaos in the world. It was feeling humbled when teaching a virtual yoga zoom class for the first time while being on mute for the first five minutes when no one said anything. It was crying tears of joy when my friend came out to me at my favorite coffee shop. It was turning 21 and having a picnic on the beach with my best friends. It was watching a friend recover from an eating disorder and be the happiest she’s been. It was being a “model” for my roommate because she wanted to try painting freckles. It was seeing my father’s resilience and undeniable positive attitude while navigating his job in the travel industry despite no one traveling for months. It was my computer crashing after I had completed 80% of a project I forgot to save. It was celebrating my aunt’s 2nd year sober anniversary. It was getting lost in a book in a Florence coffee shop last January. It was celebrating my grandpa’s 80th birthday with a drive-by. It was watching neighborhood businesses try their best over and over and over again. It was becoming friends with my older neighbor Nancy who planted flowers so we could see them through our windows. It was my 23-year-old brother finding love during the Q and my 16-year-old brother learning to drive in the snow. It’s watching my friend Andrew with graduate from High-school and continue with school, despite his disability. It was a year of trying new things like writing Medium articles. Discovering I actually like Brie cheese I just had never given it a chance. Realizing that carrots aren’t so bad.
It was a year of using voices and standing up tall for what matters most. It was the Killing of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and so many others that revolutionized a racial justice movement. It was the passing of the great Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It was the celebration of Kamala Harris as Vice President.
And finally, it was finding gratitude and acceptance of the world as we know it.
That’s the thing about hard times. People still work hard. We never stop growing. We graduate, move home, move away, open up the business one more damn time. We still wake up and try again tomorrow. And next year!
Cheers to 2021. Show us what you got.
