Dear 2020,
What a dramatic turn of events you resulted in being. As I cast my mind back to this time last year, I remember looking to this period of my life with rose-tinted glasses-oh how naive.
365 days will be full of recreating the famous roaring twenties. Daytime will be be full of hard work and frustration, but the nights will be crammed with celebrations and too much rosé. I will glide across the stage in my cap and gown, gulping down my fear of not only tripping over my graduation dress, but also tripping into the rest of my adult life. The beginning of an exciting path will unveil before me: my career. With a fully charged MacBook and a brain buzzing with ideas, I will start to become the writer and journalist I've always dreamed of being.
But alas, everything I had planned and the scribbles of manifestation I kept at the back of my notebook seemed to be more out of reach than ever before...
...I was never one for my planning my life anyway, I guess.
You see, on paper, 2020 was the most horrific of them all. And whilst COVID seemed to be the icing on top of everyone's pretty shitty cake, it actually consumed only a small portion of my crap year. Whilst the global pandemic that saw Trump suggesting infecting detergent meant 98% of my life plans became firmly on hold, it was actually goings on within my personal life that played the biggest part in this 20's hell.
Without any warning or heads up, I was forced to deal with events that I thought only played out in people's nightmares. Scenarios I'd only hear about and think "that'd never happen to me". But you taught me that sometimes it can, and it will; you just have to pick yourself up and deal with it. Whilst these ramblings aren't the place to delve into this situation nor the emotional impact behind them, they are the place to reflect and almost celebrate the person I have become as a result. I have become a person who I finally, quite like. Because up until this point, I lived an extremely comfortable and drama-free life, and whilst I am ever so grateful for this, there was only so much growing room this lifestyle allowed me to have.
You allowed me to become a person who finally grew up, and moved out of the four walls of stubbornness, immaturity and selfishness I had consumed myself within. I found a new passion and appreciation for life, for love. I was fuelled with a new obsession for the people in my life, and the things I want to do and places I want to explore beside them. I found positivity and optimism in the most most simple of places. The warmth that radiates across your face on a summer afternoon. The taste of a home cooked meal after a long day. A corny joke from a relative. I wasn't able to seek happiness from holidays abroad or expensive nights out, you taught me to get back to basics.
Whilst in no way am I grateful for the horrendous events you brought me this year, and wouldn't wish the above on anyone, I believe there is such great skill in discovering the good in among the bad. Too many days this year have been spent on debating whether to give up, to let go of the rope that I thought was helping me up, but instead was burning my skin. In order to move on, I have to let go.
This post isn't to suggest that despite everything, I have continuously remained full of joy and happiness. That couldn't be father from the truth. Instead, I hope that my words are filled with an abundance of hope, motivation and positivity that you can carry through the next 365 days. In years to come, when our hair is longer and our days our busier, we will look back at you, 2020, and laugh. We will reminisce all about the banana bread's we made, long walks we had, daily news updates we dreaded. But amid the online recipes and Boris Johnson talks,, we will also remember our resilience and our pride.
Because if we are able to get through a time we collectively thought we couldn't, we can get through anything.
Here's to a happy, healthy and hopeful new year. May we continue to laugh, love and appreciate one another X
