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2020: Thoughts so far

2020 has been an interesting year in a number of ways- from the global pandemic closing schools, offices, and other gathering places, to Black Lives Matter leading us to take to the streets in protest of ongoing racial injustice, the impeachment trial in the US, Brexit, developments all along the US 2020 campaign trail (though I live in Canada I remain a US citizen and am still able to vote in federal elections).

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. 2020 has been, objectively, a LOT.

And while all of these developments have affected me in various ways, there were so many lucky things about my particular circumstances that have helped me and my family manage through a year that could have sunk anyone. My husband and I were both already working from home and had figured out some ways for that to work well for us. Our house has a bunch of different spaces that we’re able to retreat to so that we’re not all stepping on each others’ toes throughout the day. I was able to work on some important work initiatives and do very well in the first few months of my new role. Our kids are young enough that school is still fairly lightweight in terms of study time and the activities were ones we were able to support. We were able to stay employed and even continue to save some money.

My masters’ program is already a fully online program so there weren’t any substantial changes to how my courses were being delivered or evaluated. I was even able to take on a couple of professional development courses outside of that, and am on my way to being a certified coach.

We had hoped to do some traveling this year, and that hasn’t materialized and won’t. We’re lucky that we went to Texas over Christmas and saw my family because it had been a while and we won’t likely see them again for a bit. We have been able to do window and outdoor visits with Trevor’s parents, which has been nice.

One thing I haven’t been fully focused on is my physical health- I haven’t been able to eat as mindfully or exercise as much as probably would have been best. But I also haven’t had as many colds, or gotten injured, or gotten COVID-19, so while I’m not in tip-top-shape, I’m managing.

I also haven’t been able to take on some of the home improvements I had slated for this year- I wanted to get everything repainted and get new window coverings throughout, but that has been more than we’ve been able to take on with everyone home all day every day. Maybe next year.

I have been able to donate to charitable causes- at the beginning of this year I had signed up for a few charity events that were canceled, but was able to turn those into donations instead, and have been able to take some of the money I would have spent on childcare and put it toward important causes.

Looking back at the goals I set at the beginning of this year- some of them just don’t make any sense any more. But despite that I still feel like this year hasn’t been a backslide or a wash- I still got to spend time with my family, do well at work, do professional development, and have overall stayed pretty healthy (even if I have put on a few pounds). We’ll see what 2021 might bring!