2020: A Year of Maybes

Maybe it was what it was meant to be, what we needed.

2020 has become a year when life was put on pause with no one knowing when it would resume or if it ever would pick up back from where it left off again. Taking all the excuses away because we have nowhere to be and no one to see.

2020 was supposed to be a big year. The start of a new decade not just a new year's resolution. I think it's safe to say that no one expected it to end up like this. This was not our 2020 vision. But became all we would see in 2020.

The unthinkable, unimaginable came to life with no one expecting it until it was already affecting every part of our lives.

No one ever expected for everything we thought we knew and had as a part of life to change. For people to die of all ages that we knew, loved, and care about. For society to pretty much shut down. For grocery stores to barely be open. Not to be able to eat in restaurants. For parks to be closed down. For curfews to be put into place. For masks to become mandatory to wear to go out in public. For people to be afraid to stand within 6 feet of each other. To plastic barriers being put up between any area where you interact with an employee when out at the store.

For them to be afraid of hugging their family. To be stuck in their homes for months and months. To have to apply for unemployment programs when they never imagined having to do that in their lifetime fighting hundreds of thousands of others doing the same.

Having to learn to adapt to working at home, being home 24/7 a day. To using hand sanitizer religiously after touching a single surface or object that someone else could have touched becoming paranoid at times even. Flinching and feeling an instant panic when someone sneezes around you.

Economy shut down. Stock market in a low very similar to the depression. Gas prices lower than many of us have ever seen in our lives.

Plans being cancelled for the year. Vacations cancelled. Family trips cancelled. Concerts, tours, and festivals cancelled. Careers delayed. Parties cancelled. Cruises stuck at sea and cancelled with no sign of reopening. Surgeries cancelled as COVID cases prioritized. Police checkpoints. 14 day quarntines. State bans. Travel bans. Countries shut down.

The United States not being allowed into other countries because of the manifestation COVID has turned into due to how it has handled things. Watching it shut down when cases were relatively low then open back up in phases to see cases set records daily.

People struggling with mental health and having to spend so much time at home. Feeling trapped. Anxious. Hopeless. Depressed. Lack of quality of life. Unmotivated. Sad. Lonely.

No one ever expected something like this to happen in their lifetime. And maybe that's exactly why it did need to happen as horrible as some of the effects have been.

The truth is, 2020 has been a big year. Not in the way we all individually wanted or hoped for it to be, but in a way that would change things for what I believe to be a long time. In the way we see ourselves, see others, live, socialize, and even work. It was a big year that affected more than we could have ever imagined because it became a year so much bigger than us.

A pandemic is never something that one would have wished for but maybe it was what we needed.

Maybe 2020 is the year of truth. The kind of truth that we have neglected to reflect on and see in ourselves, in others, in life, and in society that's been far overdue that we have now been forced to face for the better. A painful process and unveiling, but necessary. A year when life undressed us in front of a mirror in a room with nothing but a bed. Leaving us asking ourselves what now. What am I supposed to do. What is life if not made up of all the things I'm used to having, doing, and being. Left with nothing but to stare at ourselves over and over again. Leaving us with nothing but ourselves with no excuses, no engagements, and no place else to go.

2020 gave us permission to stop running and having to pretend like we are okay when we aren't by forcing us to sit down and stop indefinitely.

Gifting us with all the time in the world to do all the things we never said we had time to do before. To see, to feel all the things that we turned a blind eye to and buried long ago. For the band-aids to fall off of all the unhealed wounds we have. To take away "life, sense of business, and priorities" and see what we are left with and forced to face then. Dealing with all the things that were never dealt with before. All the things that got put on the back burner, turned a blind eye to, and swept under the rug. All the things that hadn't been addressed that we didn't have "time" for.

Forcing us to live in the now. Paying attention to the present because it's all we have.

The future, our future still unclear as the end to the pandemic and it's effects still so uncertain. Learning to accept the now, the reality we live in because it is life now. It is the new normal whether we like it or not. No waiting for it to end or return back to normal because no one has any idea when that might be. This is the day we live in, the way we exist, the new normal we are learning to embrace. New standards. Never expectations. New ways of doing things. New ways of living. New appreciation. New mindsets.

Letting us have the space we desperately needed even if we didn't realize it without having to feel like we are "taking space" from life, others, and even ourselves. Space that we probably wouldn't have taken and given ourselves if life continued as normal and it was up to us. Leading to growth and healing that occurred at a time that would have in all likelihood been put off for a while before ever addressed or even acknowledged.

Giving us the chance, the space to grow and heal without having to worry about anyone or anything else. The world stopped and life as we knew it not moving around us, without us. Not having to worry about life moving on without us and being left behind. The opportunity of a life time honestly. 2020 gave us this.

The truth is, none of us will probably live to when another opportunity like this is afforded to us.

Maybe 2020 is the year to set a new status quo for this decade. A reset for the start of something new, a new decade hopefully a better one. To redefine life as we thought we knew it. To show us everything we have taken advantage of having. To show us that everything we took for granted and had the privilege to do and have in our “normal” lives could disappear and become in normal. To teach us about all the things we have had the luxury of in life and to show us they aren’t necessities or guaranteed. To show us everything that we’ve ignored. To take all distractions away. To show us we can survive anything. To show us that life can change in an instant. To remind us to stop being selfish and only thinking about ourselves. To teach us lessons we’ve refused to learn and see before. To show us that life changes whether we want it to or not. To reset our mentality and attitude towards life.

Maybe 2020 was to remind us to be grateful and appreciate all the things we have and get to do. All the little things we just assumed and took for granted before. To find happiness in the smallest and simplest things. To love and enjoy life for different reasons than before. To find ways within ourselves to be okay and to be optimistic and feel hopeful. To show us that nothing is permanent or guaranteed in life and that our happiness and health should not change just because life does. And the effects that corona had on you and your life should show you that maybe you haven't learned how to be as okay with change, yourself, healed, or not being in control as you thought you had.

Change is uncomfortable and can be scary but is inevitable. 2020 has shown us that.

Maybe 2020 has been meant to offer us a renewed perspective on life and ourselves. I think it has also shown us how much we rely on the things that fill and make our lives "our lives" is too dependent on the external things in life that if they are taken away we don't know what to do without them. To learn how to socialize without bars or entertain yourself while stuck at home. To learn new hobbies. To get out in the outdoors when gyms are closed.

To reassess what really matters, where we get our sense of fulfillment, our quality of life, sense of value, and sense of belonging. What is most important at the end of the day when left with nothing else. To ask ourselves if the way we were living before is the way we really want to live or if we want to live differently. To reassess ourselves, our relationships, what matters to us, and what we want out of life. To see how little we truly need in life to be happy and be okay if we focus on the right things looking intrinsically and see everything else life has to offer us as a bonus. Not things we ever need but things we are lucky to get to do and have. Creating a mindset change of becoming dependent on those things being in your life to being appreciative of being able to include them in your life.

Maybe it is a year meant to spur change. A big change in ourselves, in others, in society, and in the world. A time meant to bring us together for the better and not just in a single moment. Because the beauty of the pandemic is we do not know when it ends and everyone is at risk, everyone is effected somehow. It does no discriminate by race, religion, sexuality, gender, social class, or anything else. It makes us all realize how vulnerable we truly are and that we are all indeed human. Maybe it was meant to help us remember that and to stop judging and treating people differently because of the things that make them individuals or the ways they choose to live their lives. To support others, lift others up and come together. To fight for the things that truly matter to us and challenge our own beliefs, biases, and morals.

Maybe this year was meant to give us a much needed break. A chance to breathe because we were forced to and given no other option than to just sit in our homes with ourselves. A break from life, work, and socializing. A break from having to feel like we have to keep doing things or going even when we've been tired for as long as we remember.

2020 has given us the ultimate excuse to finally catch our breath in a way that most of us probably never have in our lives because it made everyone stop with us.

It wasn't just about us anymore, if it was no one would care. No one would accept that you need a break from life and it all, it's just not in society's DNA to generally think that would be okay and acceptable. But, when it became bigger than us that's when everyone struggled together stuck in the same seemingly nightmare. Essentially erasing life as we knew it in what seemed like the blink of an eye. Replacing it with a minimalistic "essential" version that seemed like a miserable way to live compared to what life used to be but forced to embrace it. Remembering how life used to be, wishing for it back, but appreciating it more than ever before.

2020, a year to start a new chapter that has done that and given us all the opportunity to by stripping away everything in the span of a few months from what we thought we had, knew, wanted, and needed.

Showing us who we are without all the distractions, noise, and other "normalcies" that we have gotten accustomed to and have chosen to fill our time with when we were able to choose, when they were open and at our disposal.

Maybe 2020 is a chance for us to be better. For ourselves, for others. An enlongated wake up call to redefine what we want out of life, how we see life, and how we know ourselves. Maybe it was the year we all needed to re center ourselves, to remember our humanity, and reassess what’s actually important. Things we should have been doing and caring about all along. Making us redefine and learn how to live in a world that was very different than the life we used to know. A world we didn’t get to choose but is now our reality. Maybe it was the pause we all have need to finally address the things we ignored. The pause that made life as we knew it stop because we refused to all this time. 2020 has been a chance for us to to be more.

2020 has given us so much potential to make it whatever we want out of it. For it to be everyone's year more than any other year we have lived through. Bringing us back down to Earth, to our foundation and the simple things in life that we need to survive. Then leaving it up to us from there to build in whatever ways we choose to, to branch out, and to grow. Not because we need to in order to survive but because sprinkles make life exciting and different. Letting us redefine how we want to live our lives and who we want to be.

Maybe 2020 wasn't how we imagined, but it was how it was meant to be. It wasn't what we wanted, but it was what we needed.

Society as we know it and our lives may have seemed to cease to exist but this year has been a hell of a year for all of us impacting us more than we probably even realize. We all wanted to have a killer, kickass year of wins and highs to kick off the new decade but life seemed to think differently and I believe that's for the good of humanity. The things that really propel change and stick with us are not the highs but the lows and those show us more about ourselves and life in those moments than any highs ever could.

Maybe 2020 shouldn't be cancelled. Maybe it hasn't been as bad as it appears to look on paper when we look at it from a perspective of the changes it has caused in ourselves and in others. How it has affected behavior, health, and changes in society. Maybe we shouldn't write off 2020 as the year we wish never happened.

2020 will be a year to be remembered. A year that will go down in history. Maybe not in the books but in the minds and hearts of all those you lived through it as a year, an experience unlike any other. It has been a big year. Just not in the way that we would have defined it. It has been a very eventful year despite the lack of events.

2020 has shown me. There's so much beauty to be found in knowing that you are the star of the show even if you're standing in an ampitheater with all the seats empty. From the ground up, ever upwards. Seeing only potential. Opportunities for growth. And knowing you can stand alone on stage not needing anyone or anything else in life. And you'll be okay whether it's a full house or not. Whether the venue is open or closed. Whether life is how you have known it or you're left stripped from life itself.

Maybe it has been everything it was supposed to be. Just never anything we expected it to be.

Photo cred. Jonathan Zoetman & Lesha Jay