Well, friends, we made it to 2021! I don’t know if I should say finally or if it happened so fast! You in the same boat?
I wanted to take a moment to reflect on my 2020, which I think is similar to many others.
I started out saying “2020 is my year,” “I’m gonna have a 2020 vision this year,” and so on and so forth. Well, my year went like this…
JANUARY-FEBRUARY
The year started off with the death of Kobe Bryant and a few other people that I knew of. No one directly related to me, but all people in one circle or sphere. It honestly seemed like a morbid week. I remember thinking what the heck is happening.
But, I had so much to look forward to over the next few months, so I kept trying to focus on the great things ahead. First up was a life changing trip and then my 29th birthday. My boyfriend surprised me with a trip to Iceland. This was an absolute dream for me, so I was not going to let a weird start to the year take anything away from our special trip. Our trip came and let me tell you…it was a dream! Overall it was spectacular and something out of a storybook. I may just have to do a post on that amazing trip.
MARCH
We came home the first week of March and my birthday was a few days later. Little did we know the last time we would go out to dinner was to celebrate my birthday. We had a lovely dinner and enjoyed our favorite local restaurant. The weekend of my birthday, my new nephew and godson, Mikey was also born, which was one of the amazing things to come out of 2020.
Little did we know the following week, New York would essentially shut down. My office job moved to working from home, which I was not sure how I would feel about with my anxiety and a huge break in the life I was used to.
Needless to say, I knew what I needed to do to maintain a structure and keep my anxiety low during this very uncertain time.
I kept my morning routine. This was key.
6am: Wake up & workout
6:45-7am: Shower
7am: Watch news and take my daily vitamins
8:30am: Get dressed for “work” (in leggings of course!)
9am: Start work
This kept me consistent with my routine and structure, so I did not feel as if I was stuck home all day. After my morning routine, I honestly felt as if I had gone to work, which just happened to be across the living room. I have a lovely in-home office setup that I utilized and overall it went so well.
APRIL-JUNE
From March 17-June 29 I was working from home. The COVID cases in NYC kept rising, which became very scary. There were constant deaths among people I knew or acquittances. At a point, it became so scary and depressing. My family and I had to change the way we saw each other and I couldn’t go see my grandma.
In mid-June, my boyfriend had his ACL surgery, which was another fun wrench thrown into things, but thank goodness his surgery went well. While I was living at his house taking care of him, I got a call that my grandmother had gone to the hospital. At first, I thought it was one of her normal hospital visits, but things seemed to become way worse the next day. That Friday, my mom called me and when I said I would come to the hospital she said okay, which she never does. She never wants to inconvenience me. That is when I knew. I threw some things in a bag and drove to Long Island. I got to spend 40 minutes with her, just her and I. She knew I was there.
The next day things declined further and she passed away on Monday morning, the day I was supposed to go back to work. I wasn’t going in anyway as I wanted to stay with my family, but that’s when 2020 really pivoted for me and my family. We dind’t get to spend the time with her we typically would have due to COVID and not wanting to jeopardize her health, but meanwhile we lost all the last months we had with her.
JULY
After the services concluded, I stayed home for a few days and then had to journey back to my life and work. From July until the present, we have been working full time in the office despite COVID numbers. They decreased and then now are on the rise again. There is such a fear that someone I love will get it and get very sick or give it to one of our family members, who is more immunosuppressed. I do my best to keep life going and not only focus on what could happen, but on taking precautions.
NOVEMBER
In November, my boyfriend and I decided to move in together so we were house hunting to buy a co-op. We found a place we loved and made an offer! This decision would lead to a ton of big changes to come.
DECEMBER
The last month of the year I moved. I turned my life upside down and moved out of my apartment and in with my boyfriend until closing.
Now here I am at the end of 2020, feeling sad for what was lost, scared for what could reoccur, thankful for what I have learned, and so excited and hopeful for the future.
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