Goodbye, 2020!

I started a list last night with 20 moments to write about for this year – it was actually harder than I thought it would be, although maybe I shouldn’t have been that surprised considering a lot of this year looked the same. A continuous cycle of hand sanitizer, take out, and job applications. But! Here are still twenty things that I thought were interesting from 2020 and hopefully aren’t too boring for you to read through. If you don’t read it all, I would not be offended.

0. AN IMPORTANT EDIT AND ADDITION that I can’t believe I forgot: thankful this year for BTS, hours of Dynamite content, and princess army for a no judgment fan girl zone.

1. My new job at Blizzard is definitely a highlight of the year. After starting the year getting rejected from a job I really wanted, then getting an offer rescinded, finally getting this job was a huge relief. And although it’s been weird working full time again and starting a new job without ever having met my coworkers in person, I am finding that working at Blizzard has exceeded my expectations.
2. Sheltering in place gave me the unexpected luxury of spending a lot of time with two of my favorite small people, and now during this holiday break I’ve got to spend a lot of time with a third small person. It’s been great.
3. Related to #2 is outside play time, which, in the first few months of sheltering in place, consisted of watching Jeremiah and James practice throwing a football. In general, living across the street from my best friends and getting to spend a lot of time with them was a major, major bonus to 2020. See: watching a baby bird get eaten, rescuing a Piplup.
4. James and I also played a lot of Pokémon Go this year, which I am not ashamed to admit.
5. I had to cook a lot more, and am gradually understanding how to cook without a recipe! Woohoo!
6. I also switched to making pourover coffee and splurged on a coffee grinder earlier this year which I think has now paid for itself. (Honorable mention to our soda stream which replaced boxes and boxes of La Croix.)
7. Sometimes I look back on the pictures of our Japan trip and hope that I will get the chance to eat great food like that again.
8. In pre-Covid times (really not pre-Covid, but before it was a thing in the US), Alice got married!
9. I also switched to using a menstrual cup this year since I figured if I’m home all the time, it’s easier to deal with my period, and it’s been one of the best decisions of the year.
10. I’ve also cut down my hair washing schedule to once a week.
11. I had bad flashbacks to 2016 November during this year’s election, and for the first time actually tried to research the different propositions so I could make an educated vote. I am not anywhere close to where I would like to be in regards to being informed on social justice issues, but I’m learning to challenge myself to think critically about the status quo.
12. We painted the garage over a couple of very, very hot days.
13. I struggled a lot with my weight and my body image for good portion of this year, and had a very bad relationship with the scale until Jeremiah hid it from me. I’ve stopped counting calories and started trying to lift more weights and hopefully next year I’ll continue to have a better relationship with the physical way I am!
14. On a brighter note, my skin really improved this year. For some reason, I have been oddly blessed to get better skin while wearing a mask and I am not complaining.
15. The few trips I did take this year were really great – Yosemite and Monterey.
16. Our Walnut Creek staycation deserves its own line item because it was the restful weekend I needed after a really draining summer of job applications. I found out I got the job soon after (or maybe that same weekend?) and was able to really enjoy time spent with friends.
17. I started biking! This past week, I actually fell off my bike. But I also was able to bike up the hill heading to my parents house twice!
18. I briefly saw a therapist for about two months in the summer, when I was really struggling with… a lot of things. I know people say to not knock therapy until you’ve tried it, and there shouldn’t be a stigma around going to therapy, but now that I’ve gone I think I can say it’s not for me. It was excruciatingly hard to open up to my therapist, and perhaps with another therapist it would have been easier, but it just felt painful sitting there for an hour trying to talk to her.
19. I finished my Goodreads challenge of 50 books in a year – you can check out the books here! Very grateful for both of the book clubs I’m in – one that is very chill and so far I am 0/2 of picking good books to read, and the second that is at work and reminds me that there are a lot of other people out there whose science fiction and fantasy interests are way way deeper than mine (but I’m grateful to have a group who understand me when I complain about unfinished series).
20. Lastly, a huge shoutout to Down for A Cross and Nonograms.org for keeping me occupied for hours and hours and hours.

I remember seeing something on Instagram about how we shouldn’t say that we would like to just forget about 2020, because really, the lessons that 2020 taught us should be ones that we take to heart. Like, maybe don’t take a global pandemic lightly, and saying Black Lives Matter doesn’t mean every other life matters less, and maybe if you didn’t make bake bread or learn a new skill, you still grew as a person and learned things about yourself. Even though 2020 didn’t go as planned, it did happen! And now I’m ready for a new year, with no new mistakes in it yet.

Although for anyone who may not get the chance to throw a huge 30th birthday party in 2021 because we’re still in shelter in place and quarantine mode, then by all means definitely pretend that this year did not happen and throw a huge party when we can. My RSVP will be a definite yes.