Hello, lovelies! This year has been awful. You already know this, but the worst part for me was that all of these problems existed before the pandemic and will exist after, but no one cares. I’ve been very vocal about my general anger this year. 2020 was the angriest I’ve ever been, but the first time I truly cried about it was last week. I was so overwhelmed by my anger that I started sobbing.
And it wasn’t about one particular thing. It was about everything at once. I was pissed that there was a spike in hate crimes against Jewish people during Hanukah and no one reported on it. I was pissed about people defending police officers who have needlessly murdered people. Take profession and race out of it for a second. If one person kills another person, they should go to jail. Yet so many people don’t believe systematic racism exists even after all this evidence has been there for decades. There are bombs being dropped on civilians, but we don’t care because more powerful countries are doing it to weaker countries. There are literal concentration camps in China, but no one is doing anything about it! Heck, there are basically concentration camps at the U.S. border, but we don’t stop the unnecessary medical procedures and hysterectomies we’re doing on Hispanic women! Just, ugh! And things like this aren’t new! What’s happening to women in Poland isn’t new. What’s happening in Palestine isn’t new. And systematic racism exists in literally every country, including places like New Zealand, Canada, and the UK, but their minority population isn’t as big as America’s, so their message is thrown under the rug.
And then there is this pandemic. I have lost respect for almost every person I know. If you have even once gone out without a mask, or met up with multiple groups of people unnecessarily in the U.S, you have killed someone. The numbers are that high here that it’s not even an exaggeration to say that you’ve killed people. It pisses me off that even the “smart” people who understand the problems this pandemic is causing are so selfish that the line between infecting someone and not is their own enjoyment. I can’t imagine what it’s like to be an essential worker right now. A family friend of ours works at a hospital in the county I live in. That hospital reached capacity last week, and when they added a hundred more beds, those beds were filled within a day. ~20,000 people die in the U.S. every week from the coronavirus, but you can’t even be bothered to wear a fucking mask when you see a friend. There are a million other factors that are contributing to it that I’m also pissed about. Our government doesn’t take care of people. Capitalism and all. “Go to work but don’t do anything else” is terrible advice. People can’t survive without working, and now people are given the choice of die of disease or die of hunger. And not just in the U.S. This has been happening everywhere.
So yeah, I was crying out of fury. Mostly about racism and misogyny, but the pandemic is not far from my mind usually because people are unnecessarily dying and no one cares. After crying, I wrote this list. I’m very lucky that quarantine wasn’t as bad as it could have been. My dad works from home, so we didn’t have to worry about him losing his job. Both my grandparents got coronavirus in Bangladesh and survived, and were able to get back to Atlanta. I had enough savings from the last four years of working that I could survive not having an income for the majority of this year. I’m so lucky that I didn’t need to struggle in ways that so many people in the world have. And despite all the terrible things happening in the world, my mental health was surprisingly good this year. So I’m just going to write about some good things. I hope you enjoyed my rant. Let’s get into it.
1.//This year was going to be stressful either way
Many people went into 2020 super excited saying it was going to be their year. I didn’t. 2019 was such a fun year for me that I doubted this year would top it. I was also anticipating a lot stress. It was the good type of stress that came with graduating, travel, starting a new job, etc. But stress nonetheless. That’s just life. Progress is a part of life and expectations are stressful. Outside of the pandemic, anxiety from the election, the supreme court, racism, etc. were going to happen anyway. The U.S. and the world have always had problems, and those things were part of what made 2020 filled with anxiety.
But personally, my quarter life crisis was postponed. Yes, I missed out on some great things, but I can still do them later. That type of stress wasn’t added to the dumpster fire this year would’ve been even without the pandemic (which made it infinitely worse, but you get my point).
2.//There were less expectations
This goes with my previous point. I had things very tentatively planned out for the year. After graduating, I was going to take about a month off then travel to South America with my best friend in June. After that, I was going to start applying to jobs and hopefully get one. Then I was going to work and live at home to save money before moving out next year. Prior to the pandemic, I was worried about the month I wanted to take off because I knew people were going to pester me about when I was getting a job. I’m South Asian. There are a million-and-one expectations from random-ass people. My parents knew my plans and were fine with it, but even the expectations I had for myself were high.
And now, expectations are a lot lower. It is completely okay to not be doing anything right now. Most of the expectations I’m not reaching are my own, and even I understand that. I can’t reach many of my financial goals right now, and that’s fine. I honestly could apply for jobs (because Georgia refuses to go into lockdown), but I don’t want to risk my family or kill random people. Even general expectations like going out regularly and meeting up people aren’t there anymore. And it’s nice. There is significantly less judgement if you’re doing nothing. (There’s honestly more judgement if you are going out and traveling putting people in danger).
3.//I learned to chill out and not be productive 24/7
Sometimes I think about who I was a year ago and wonder, “How did I do that?” I was a person who was always doing something. I would take the maximum amount of credit hours each semester, work every weekend, work out multiple times a week, read books, hang out with friends, etc. I had a very balanced routine and got eight hours of sleep everyday, but I got shit done. I loved it that way. I was never busy. I always made a point to never feel busy and I’m pretty sure it annoyed my friends whenever I said “life was hectic” and still made time for things.
And then quarantine hit, but it was fine because I still had my last semester of school. I had a bunch of work to do for my online classes and was studying for the GRE to apply for graduate school last minute. May was definitely when the the true “doing nothing” phase of quarantine hit. Historically, having a few weeks of nothing made me feel very blah. I don’t like being bored. I had a terrible sleep schedule, wasn’t reading or exercising as much, etc. But it turned out fine. I got used to it. I learned to enjoy doing nothing. I had months to truly REST and figure out how to motivate myself without an outside schedule. I’m still working on that to be honest. I’m excited about having a real schedule and doing things again once I get the vaccine, but I’m glad that I can now do nothing without feeling kind of depressed.
4.//I like how I look in my glasses now
I still have one pair of contacts left, but I only wear them the few times I go out. I “ran out” months ago and have had to wear my glasses every day since. I don’t dislike how I look in glasses; I just think contacts are more comfortable. It feels like I’m not wearing anything and I can move my eyes instead of my head to look to the left and right. They also don’t fog up. Anyway, I’ve gotten used to my glasses and think I look good when I wear them. I was meh about how I looked in them before, but I’ll probably wear my glasses more often now. I still think contacts are more comfortable
Another example of this is bras. This is very TMI, but women shouldn’t be embarrassed to talk about this stuff. I stopped wearing a bra for like eight months this year. It wasn’t purposeful. I only had one bra left after the wires in my last few stuck out and none of my older ones fit. I didn’t see a point in buying new ones, so I just stopped wearing a bra.
And it was amazing! I feel so much more confident in my chest now. Stairs and running were still painful, but it was fine. I understand why women are starting to not wear bras now. It’s so much more comfortable and they know how to hold themselves up TBH. (For context, I’m 34C. And this is no judgement or shade against people who do wear bras. I also still wear bras. And I’ve watched videos of people with G chests who prefer not wearing bras. It’s all about your preference and I don’t care what you do with your boobs.)
5.//I am a slightly more cultured person
I’ve always read a lot of books, but I was never one to watch lots of shows and movies. I wouldn’t start new shows because I didn’t want to become obsessed and binge them during the semester, so I typically avoided them when I wasn’t on a break. I love going to the movie theatre, but my general taste consists of animations, movies based on books, superhero films, and the occasional “something that was nominated for an Oscar that year.” When quarantine started, I submerged myself in all that content. I’ve watched more T.V shows this year than I had in all four years of college. I also finally got around to watching the movies that had been on my list for years like Inception or the Before trilogy.
It’s been really great. Instead of being like, “Why did it take you so long to watch these movies?!” I’m reframing it as, “I’m in for such a treat.” I’d definitely watched a lot of big movies before the pandemic like Back to the Future and La La Land, but there are plenty that I haven’t experienced yet like The Godfather. Even though my reading has been a bit meh this year, I’ve made up for it through shows and movies.
6.//My allergies were better
I have very severe environmental allergies. I take pills every day, got allergy shots for five years, get headaches from smelling flowers, etc. I am just allergic to the outside world. I have a very long list of specific things I’m allergic to, so it’s kind of pointless to avoid them because it would mean I’d need to avoid everything. So I just live with it. As long as I take allergy medication, it’s not too bad. When I forget one day, I’m a snotty mess the next. It’s still touch and go even if I take the pill.
So a huge perk of quarantine is that I skipped all my spring allergies. The south is a giant pollen bowl. Legit everything turns yellow, so it’s not the best time of year for me. I thankfully avoided that along with fall allergies this year. I remember the first time my friends and I had a socially distanced picnic in June, I had the worst sleep of my life. That was the first time I was outside for an extended period of time in months, so I used up an entire tissue box that night. I literally could not breathe through my nose. I woke up the next morning and sent a picture of the piles of used tissues scattered by my bed to my friends because it was ridiculous. My body is going to have an adverse reaction once I start going out again. I think this year has made me forget how bad my allergies actually are, so it’s going to hit me like a freight train.
7.//I learned to love working out at home
Prior to quarantine, I thought that a gym membership would have to be included in my monthly budget because I absolutely despised working out at home. I just couldn’t do it efficiently. It took a few months, but I finally got into the habit of working out at home. I can’t describe how much exercising again has improved my mental health and energy throughout the day. When you stop or never worked out to begin with, you don’t realize how much movement affects your mood. Exercise has been the only consistent part of my quarantine routine. I literally do it 5-6 days a week, which is more than I did before.
Now that I’ve learned how to work out at home, I probably won’t get a monthly gym membership. I’ll use that extra money to try other fun movement activity classes like pole dancing or archery.
Related – How I Learned To Enjoy Working Out At Home
8.//I was able to pursue a lot of hobbies
This came about because I was sick of staring at a screen all day every day. Technology was in every facet of my day. Online school, watching movies, YouTube workout videos, videogames, social media, listening to music in the shower or listening to audiobooks while cooking. I was sick of staring at screens all day. Reading was my only break from screens, but I needed more. I bought a bunch of cheap water color paints and started painting. I bought some Word Search and Sudoku books and realized how bad I’ve gotten at sudokus since middle school. I bought a bunch of craft supplies and started art journaling. I started writing on paper instead of typing. I definitely lost some of my zest for blogging this year, but I wrote a lot on my own. “Not having time” wasn’t a valid excuse anymore. You decide what you want to do with your time, and quarantine was a good time to pursue a few hobbies.
9.//People understand more than they did before
I’m still upset that it took George Floyd’s death for people to understand what Black Lives Matter meant. And people still don’t understand! The police have been killing black people for so long. Heck, their jobs literally started off as slave catchers hundreds of years ago, and we act like we can fix a system that was broken to begin with. It was great to see people protest and we were shown just how the government retaliated against peaceful protests versus the protests where conservatives stormed government buildings with guns. There are still many living in ignorance, but I definitely think people know more now than they did before.
I used a Black Lives Matter example, but this applies to many other things like how broken our healthcare system is and how much rich people have profited off of this pandemic. This is a very minor thing I learned this year, but I didn’t know that movie theatres don’t make a profit off of ticket sales. Theatres stay afloat through snack sales, and I almost never buy snacks when I go to the theatre. I love going to the movies, so I’m going to have to buy snacks for the next few years to support those businesses because I don’t want them to close.
10.//I have really great friends who I talked to all the time
My best friends have made quarantine way better than it would’ve been. They’re the reason I’m still sane. I am incredibly lucky that I have so many people in my life to talk and text with regularly. I have not felt socially isolated at all. It honestly makes me feel so much better about my friendships. This year has definitely made me the bitchiest I’ve ever been, so I’m glad my friends still enjoy my company. I video-called with one of my cousins and she talked about how quarantine has brought out the bitchy introvert in her, and I feel that completely. My close friends and I have known each other for over a decade, so we know that all of us are judgmental and arrogant nerds, so we vented to each other a lot.
We also just hung out on Zoom every week, played games, talked about books and movies, what we were doing for school and work, etc. Having set weekly friend dates made me feel less socially isolated. One of my best friends Kat and I started Netflix partying shows in March, and I swear we’ve spent over a hundred days together this year chatting online while watching different shows for the first time. It was so fun. I definitely have missed many of my “in-person” friends through quarantine, but I’m lucky to have a lot of cousins and close friends to video-chat with and have little socially distanced “pod” gatherings with.
11.//I was able to sleep in
I have spoken ad nauseam about my messy sleep schedule this year. I am definitely a night person. I’ve always known this. I just made myself wake up in the morning before because I had to. Not having anything to do for months on end gave me a lot of time to sleep. Have I fucked up my sleeping patterns? Yes. Do I regret it? Honestly, no. I like it when I wake up before everyone else, but there’s something so nice about waking up without an alarm clock and getting a lot of work done in the middle of the night while everyone is asleep.
12.//My family started eating dinner together
My family never eats together at the dinner table. The only time we do is during Ramadan. There is a multitude of reasons for this. The biggest one being my brother Mysoon. As you know, he has autism and he doesn’t like eating at the table. We also feed him and his appetite is pretty touch and go. The other factor is that all of ue ate at different times. My dad’s schedule usually keeps his mornings free, but he has meetings in the evenings. My brother Zidan is a gamer, so he sometimes has scrimmages and tournaments in the evening. My grandparents eat earlier than us and my mom and I also ate at different times, so we just went with it. Eating all together wasn’t something we did outside of holidays and at restaurants.
And then quarantine happened. My dad’s workload went down in the summer, so my mom wanted us to continue having dinner together after Ramadan ended. We all complained about it, but we still did it. Mysoon got very stressed out and stimmed a lot during that time. We eventually got used to it despite eating dinner earlier than we were used to. I would argue that we still don’t eat dinner altogether because we let Mysoon leave the table after five minutes, my dad has work, and my grandfather eats earlier, but we’re better at it than before. It’s typically me, my mom, Zidan, and my grandma every evening (unless Zidan has a videogame thing, but he typically doesn’t schedule them at that time anymore).
13.//Mysoon handled quarantine really well
I talked about this in a previous blog post, but this made a huge difference. Mysoon handled quarantine surprisingly well. There have definitely been a few problems, but he’s not asking to go out to places like he used to. He wears a mask. He does online school. We’ve had it a lot easier than many people a part of special needs families.
Related – Our Experience Being Quarantined With Someone With Autism
14.//Trump lost the election and Georgia turned blue
Need I say more. There is a light at the end of this very long tunnel, but we still have a lot of work to do.
Georgia turning blue is a highlight of my life. I would’ve been happy if any of the southern states turned blue, but I’m ecstatic that it’s Georgia. I don’t think people realize how diverse the South is and just how subtle voter suppression is here. This was a big feat. If you live in Georgia, please vote in the Senate Runoff on January 5th. Early voting is still open. The last day for early voting is January 1st.
15.//I made the most of it
I think this is what made quarantine not so terrible for me. Once this pandemic is over, I know that starting my career will press the play button on my life. Everything is just going come at me full swing: working, being in an office, moving out, traveling, saving money, relationships, breakups, marriage, kids, buying a house, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. I’ve been very aware that there is never going to be another pause this long. It was very easy to feel behind on life this year, so I reminded myself that life is long. This year has just postponed things that were eventually going to happen anyway.
So I took advantage of the rest. I spent the first three months of quarantine really digging deep on what I actually wanted in the future and wrote it all down. I am getting another degree out of this “wasted year,” and all the other day to day things I’ve mentioned were just as impactful. Externally, everything is still shit and I’ve lost respect for most of the people in my life, but if I’m being honest, my mental health is actually better than it was in January. Externally, I doubt 2021 will be better, but I’m gonna focus on the things I can control.
So yeah…this year is almost over. I have not blogged as much this year, but engagement has been surprisingly high considering I rant about politics and ignorant people a lot. I’m holding back 90% of my fury because this blog would turn into a bunch of statistics otherwise (Like the fact that someone in Los Angeles is dying of Covid every ten minutes at the time this blog post is posted). All my new years blog posts will start going up in the next few weeks like my year in review, Top 10 books read, 2021 goals, etc. so you’ve got that to look forward to. Until next time I guess. Don’t be a moron/don’t be a smart person who justifies moronic behavior. I have been both.
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Lol. This was a very loaded blog post. What were some of the few good things in your life this year?