Andrew England

Reflections On a Doldrum Year

Whilst discussing this past year and the prospect of a new, perhaps more uplifting one on the horizon with a friend yesterday, I found myself uttering the words, “I’ve never been so excited to put a needle in my arm.” If, in the late stages of last year, I somehow knew that my mouth would be forming this sentence, I’d have assumed I’ve hit some sort of rock bottom, wondering how I, a person who truly fainted the last time I had bloodwork done for an annual physical, managed to develop this habit. I wouldn’t have been able to anticipate the events that would shortly follow, and the overwhelming amount of anxiety paired with the slight optimism a new number in the calendar year brought me now seems humorous in hindsight. It’s not rare for the winter months to stir a potent concoction of melancholy and needless recollection and analysis in my head, and though many think pieces will be written about the year that was 2020, the majority of which will undoubtedly be much more eloquent than this, I can’t resist the impulse to try and wrap my hands around this period of time that has slipped through so many of our fingers. So how does one reflect on a year that in many ways, wasn’t, yet also rattled our brains with unending news cycles and new alarms?