The year 2020, full of promise, an optimistic ring to it. Some joked it would be 20/20: the year of clear vision. It had a nice symmetry, and at the cusp of the new year it felt like good things were on the horizon.
Roll on 11 months or so. I can honestly say 2020 will be counted as one of the worst years in most people’s memories. To be buried and forgotten if possible – but just as likely to be immortalised and recounted for decades to come, synonymous with anything shit that happens in the rest of our lives – “argh, this reminds me of 2020!”.
The most interesting part of this year is that everyone appears to have a different story – a different reason why 2020, for most, has been such a trying year. The obvious one is a global pandemic that’s restricted everyone’s freedom and killed over 1.5 million people. But there are actually many faces to the crisis, many emotions, many hardships.
I’ve witnessed a lot of hurt this year in the lives of those around me, both here in Australia and back in the Uk. The pandemic has impacted people directly and indirectly, and the hurt has transpired in various ways, which I’ve been mulling over a lot these past few months…
Only the lonely
One directly linked to the pandemic, the lockdowns have isolated many people. Especially hard for those living alone, going days and months without socialising with loved ones, without human contact. Particularly sad is that some of the older people in our lives, who are more at risk, have had to keep away for months on end from loved ones. It started off as bit of a break, a holiday – but there’s only so much reading, cleaning, gardening, FaceTime, Netflix, online exercise and drinking you can do. Humans are social creatures, we naturally crave contact with others, so this has been really hard for friends and family of mine living alone.
Anyone for a walk?!
Lockdown has meant that shops, gyms, restaurant, bars, parkruns, festivals, cinemas, museums, theatres have closed for most of 2020 in many parts of the world, UK and Melbourne included. Life as we know it has been put on hold. Culture has been cancelled, for now. At Christmas 2019 I bought my friend a ‘light-box’ which had all the things she loves doing printed in every direction (travel, dancing, eating out, etc) – we joked recently how irrelevant this gift turned out to be, as she hasn’t been able to do any of these things for the whole year. On the plus side everyone seems to be going on more walks, and some have taken up new hobbies – people even started skiing across parks in London this summer!
The virus is real
I know a few people who got coronavirus this year, some were asymptomatic, but others were really sick (including my son). One guy was a personal trainer before all of this, caught covid and could barely walk without getting out of breath for months afterwards. It may feel far away to some people but it’s a real virus and it’s pretty nasty. Not to mention the people I know who work in the health and care sector who’ve put their lives at risk to help others.
PE Joe and the longest school holiday in history
When Boris Johnson first announced a 3 week lockdown back in March and closure of the schools my sister said “I don’t know how I’ll cope with the kids for that amount of time”. I was too afraid to tell her that I’d heard rumours it would be for 6 months. Fast-forward to September and the children were only just being phased back into formal education. This sent parents a bit nutty, trying to juggle working from home with home-schooling and no time apart. Children have also been feeling the affects of the restrictions and social distancing – I’ve spoken to lots of worried parents whose kids were freaking out about going outside or worried about germs. Begs the question, are we now raising a generation of paranoid and socially awkward adults…?
Covid babies
Several of my friends and family had a baby this year – and what should have been a very exciting time in their lives was fraught with restrictions and quite scary. Partners not allowed at the birth, staff in full PPE the whole time, and when they got home nobody was allowed to visit or offer support. Not probably what anyone envisaged at the start of their pregnancy. Plus, it takes a village to raise a child as they say, it’s a tough gig, so it’s easy to see how isolation puts women at higher risk of post-natal depression. Such a surreal year for having a baby.
Grief
Loss this year has been extra difficult. There’s been the fear of losing loved-ones to covid, but there’s also been the non-covid related deaths too, where families haven’t been able to pay their last respects in person. Either prohibited from visiting the hospital or unable to attend the funeral due to number restrictions. Grief is the hardest thing in the world as it is, let alone with added layers of difficulty and frustration. I lost my uncle this year and being over the other side of the world I was grateful for the opportunity to live-stream his funeral, but it broke my heart not being able to hug my family in person.
Redundant
This is a big one. The world is in a recession right now unlike any other in the last half a century. People have suffered financially this year for lots of reasons – businesses have had to shut for considerable periods of time, money’s been written-off for holidays and flights, and I personally know several people who lost their jobs and haven’t been able to find work. It’s such an anxious time for them and as a friend there hasn’t been much I can do other than be there when they need some emotional support. You want to reassure people and say it’s all going to be better in 2021 but without a crystal ball the reassurances don’t hold much weight. All we can hope is that the vaccine is circulated widely soon and by mid-2021 things are beginning to stabilise and return to “normal”.
Heartbreak
This year has been pretty stressful on relationships and it’s seen it’s fair share of separations. Psychologists were predicting an increase in divorce due to stress, lockdowns and having to spend an inordinate amount of time with their partner. Break-ups are just all round sad, especially when it’s close friends.
General anxiety disorders
When I got back to Queensland I was surprised to see how high people’s anxiety levels were. In the UK I understood it more as the cases were in the thousands and deaths in the hundreds every day. But despite Australia having managed to contain the virus (eventually in Victoria too it seems after a strict lockdown for months), despite this, covid has triggered some deep fears and OCD in people. Waiting lists for counselling and psychology in Australia are through the roof and a survey taken in the middle of the year showed that 25% of young adults said they’d be better off dead. A devastating statistic. My phobias came back too and I felt like I was on the verge of a panic attack for the first 4 months after we returned. There’s just a general air of unease, and I think, along with the obvious fear of dying, a lot of it’s linked to not being able to plan for the future and having our freedoms (such as travel) taken away. Quarantine is another thing I never thought I’d have to experience – unfortunately I didn’t have any mental-health strategies up my sleeve for being locked in a room for 2 weeks!
Scattered families
The heightened anxiety is also linked to not being able to see family. There’s those in isolation suffering from loneliness on one hand, but there are also people who aren’t in lockdown themselves but their families are in different states or different countries and they’re unable to see them. With borders closed people are separated indefinitely from loved ones, unsure when they’ll next get to see each other. Being Welsh I can obviously empathise, having felt very homesick of late, and I know of friends with very ill family members over the other side of the world. Us ex-pats took it for granted we’d be able to see our family whenever we wanted to.
The “new normal”?
We’ve actually been experiencing, until this year, a very long period of relative stability in the wealthier parts of the world. If you are educated and live in Europe, America, China, Japan, Canada, Australia and other colonised countries chances are you’re in the top 10% by living standards and income. So, travel, freedom of movement are a normal part of our existence – but it certainly isn’t like that for everyone. That’s why some said at the beginning of the year, the virus was an infliction confined to the wealthy – because it was those travelling by plane who were picking it up or passing it on at first. Unfortunately, as it spread by people who could afford air travel it got passed on to communities who had the worst chances of surviving the virus, due to existing poor health or vulnerable living conditions. The pandemic has certainly been a shock and a wake-up call for people living economically comfortable existences. A glimpse perhaps at other potential future crises, such as the climate changing and food and water shortages.
So I guess this blog is a goodbye to 2020, my way of processing all the hurt, grief, loneliness and anxiety I’ve seen this year. Perhaps a little reminder of the zeitgeist of the time when we look back on all of this in decades to come. I’ll bury this post like a little time-capsule, resurrecting an anecdote or two every now and again when times are hard, if we’re fortunate though there will never be a year quite as tough or surreal again. Let’s hope 2020 doesn’t become the new normal and if we’re lucky we’ll instead be exclaiming “at least this is nothing like 2020, what a shit show of a year that was!”
Joelle
the three free spirits. 