We have come to that time of the year when we must take stock of how the last 12 months has affected us, who we were in it and what we learned. This precious time when a weary world rejoices in the ending of another cycle, eager to see another year come to whatever close it may have and ready to begin anew.
Each year, I look at my life and I try to distill what the year taught me as well as who I became, what I lost, what I gained and what I am willing to fight for. This has been no ordinary year, but is any year really? The circumstances of our years will always change, the goalpost for success will always keep moving and the challenges of love will seem even more insurmountable but who we are, who really are that should always be our truth.
So on the backdrop of year that seemed intent on breaking us but in fact make us stronger, here is what I know to be true of my 2020:
Being still – a lesson in stillness, true stillness is a hard one to learn and it requires relearning. For a nomad, a year in lockdown seemed like the worst thing to happen but what I found was that when I was still I was able to listen. For the first time, I heard my body, what it needed and what I had to give it that. I was still enough to hear the voices in my head clearly to find my path and regain passion.
Beauty of couch time – a couch is more than just a piece of furniture that affords you comfortable seating. It is the place we come to at the end of our day to shed emotional armour. My couch should be able to hold me in my darkest hour giving comfort and peace. It’s okay to give our couches names, mine is called Dolly.
Being present – this year I learnt that I want to be present in the moments that matter to me and the people I care about. I am increasingly learning that when I am with people I want the devices away. I want eye contact and emotional connection, I want them to understand that in that moment nothing else but them matters and all other distractions can wait. I want to know that at that moment I am the only thing that matters and that the people in their phones can wait five minutes for the conversation to end.
Not all Banana breads are created equal – though we all baked banana bread like our very survival depended on it, I soon discovered not all equal. Somehow our friends showed us they were master bakers because some banana breads tasted and looked like the works of a master chef and others did not, but that’s okay.
Redefining our relationship with loss – this is a year that has changed how I think of loss. We lost people in a way so cruel, our goodbyes were said in such cold and clinical ways. People died alone when they didn’t need to. We lost people to COVID, to meaningless violence, to the passage of time, to emotional battles unable to be won in darkness and the cruelty of isolation. There has been so much loss that how I think about loss is changing and with it, the way I think about grief.
Building new armours for grief – in losing so much and watching our loved ones die through glass we had to build new armour for grief. Messages of death came in texts and calls, inability to be present at funerals meant we had to grieve in new ways. So when our hearts were breaking and the pieces fell everywhere it was the friends that picked up the phone at 5am that mattered. The ones who understood that our loss was a journey and our pain though everlasting would eventually be quiet. So we grieved on Instagram, on Twitter, on WhatsApp and discovered that a single human voice can wrap us in safety and love when we couldn’t be hugged.
Understanding what we need from love – love is a many splendid things but it is also a many complicated things. A beast that cannot be tamed and will not be refused. The idea of falling in love has often felt so hard and impossible but the truth of 2020 is that it can be as easy as taking breath. The risk to pursue that is the real hard work. To love someone knowing they can’t be yours, is a humbling lesson in the futility of trying to protect one’s heart. However the process of being in love, even unrequited, gives you great clarity in understanding what you need and want from love. As battered as that tired heart may be, it is grateful for the lesson and one day it will find a home where it is equally loved.
The ever changing nature of friendships – this is the year that our friends lost and won with us. We leaned on our friends and they became the bedrock of how we experienced our days. When we couldn’t see each other we created new routines that technology allowed us to keep. The nature of friendships changed, evolving to something more, allowing us to create bonds that are stronger. We found closeness and vulnerability. We also learnt that friendships will break and what you do after matters.
The weight of I love yous – in 2020 we learnt how to really say I love you. The weight of our I love yous was heavy with emotion because this was the year we needed to say it out loud. It is a hard struggle for some to say the words out loud because we often feel that our love is implied. However, in 2020 it became much more important and urgent to let the people we care about know that they are indeed loved. Every time we said it, the full force of the emotion behind it wrapped the receiver like a hug on a cold winter’s night.
Empathy is a two way street – one of the hardest states of self-awareness is empathy. To truly be empathetic towards somebody else, you have to know yourself and understand your own state of being. We are mirrors to others as they are to us. When our pain is so heavy and it pulls us in a dizzying way that we cannot see properly we lose sight of others. We forget that the pain of the person sitting next to us or across from us is equally or even more heavy. This year learning to be empathetic is ever-changing work that is as is important as breathing.
Selfcare is the watchword – after years of wellness gurus telling us I need to take care of ourselves we finally listened. In forced isolation, I learnt to discover the joy of ‘me time’, the calming effects of bubble baths and the healing power of meditation. I created space to put myself and my health and happiness first.
Gratitude should be as easy as counting – I often think about the things that I lost what was taken from me or should have been mine, most of us do. We forget what has been given, we forget to look at the things that we have. The generosity of strangers, the steadfastness of good friends and the kindness of a neighbour when you fall in the parking lot. Everyday it is important to count out what we are grateful for: the air I breathe, smile from a friendly neighbour, a good morning text from a best friend and a home to call my own.
Trust once broken isn’t always lost but is bitch to get back – Trust is like a vase, when it breaks though possible to put the pieces back together again it is never the same. Often it is best to just throw it away. But for the things that matter it important to fix the broken pieces even though the cracks will always be there. When you are isolated for as long as we have been in this lockdown trust matters a lot and how we show up for each other and show our trust and our trust is guarded by others, matters.
Sleep still matters – the underestimated power of sleep is still so important. The clarity we get from being well rested and switching our ever working brain is vital in ensuring our self care is honoured. I need more sleep.
Baking is not always the answer – the year of competitive baking. Our Instagram feeds and stories were filled with these. New York Times Cooking probably saw more interest than ever this year. As someone who baked her way through the first few months of the pandemic, I can assure it did not give me the solace I had hoped. In some cases it created more questions, but it did bring discovery and a sense of routine but its peace fades.
You cannot fix the world – we all want to help. At the core of human nature in 2020 we found out that we are actually fairly decent. The ability to help someone is a privilege that we should always be grateful for and show up for. However, we cannot fix everything for everyone, it is also important to understand that there are some things that we just cannot fix. The world is burning and some we can fix, others we require a deeper healing beyond one individual.
At the end of your tears you will find the truth – we cried this year even when we didn’t know why. We lost so much, pieces of ourselves, people and livelihood. When we cried without reason we found answers at the end of our tears, when a silent pain threw us in a despair we didn’t understand. Hot searing tears cleansed us like saltwater.
Music is always a conversation – make playlists! Music is a conversation between friends, lovers and family. It is a flirtation and a way to slowly open one’s heart. It makes us brave, we find ourselves in the stories songs tell. We find home in between the lyrics and meaning the arrangements. It is my new favourite to communicate.
Books are still magic – getting lost in the pages of a book is one of the best ways to have an adventure. Books allow us to be free in a way that our minds just can’t figure out in our day to day. A magic so pure it allows you to fall in love, heal and triumph all at once.
Learning who we are – every year something happens to us that makes us question who we are. In being still this question of who we are has never been more important, the choices and compromises we are willing to make and the things we will allow and refuse ourselves. A journey of deeper meaning, self awareness and purpose. Above all be kind and when you are not apologise and make amends.
So, who are you?