Twenty fucking twenty.

That is how this year is best described by many. Contrary to how people hoped this year to be, 2020 caused a number of challenge to all of us. This year made me realize how old I indeed am because I experienced how to live in a time of struggle and fear. The emergence of the COVID19 pandemic tested both my resilience and existence. The things I planned to do for this year either had to be set aside or worst, have to be scrapped for good. 

While I hoped to stay employed for two more years, the plan was cut short after the lockdown caused my employment to be terminated last April-- an effect of the current situation. For a moment, the news of becoming unemployed all of a sudden after being in the same job for more than eight years left me both in worry and fear. Sudden unemployment meant worrying about my own finances among other things. I always had this question of what will happen tomorrow and how I will start again kept running in my head every single day for nine months now. Despite wanting to get back to the groove again, such plan does not seem to work out.

But in a way, I try to look at the abrupt pause as a welcome respite. For someone like me who has always been used to busy and often stressful routines familiar to every employed person, to be part of the locked at home population enabled me to realize a number of things that I failed to recognize in the last eight years. For one, the pandemic allowed my body to recuperate from years of working in different jobs and working hours. A thing that I admit to have neglected just because my body was not sending me much warning that it’s needed. Eversince the lockdown (and its easing happened), my body has enjoyed the luxury of getting enough hours of sleep and being able to rewire and recharge.

I just try to look at a brighter side that a chapter of my life has concluded after eight long years and that something better will eventually arrive to replace what I have unexpectedly lost.

To me, 2020 was also a year of discovery and exploration. It was this year that I ventured in some endeavors that for years I never tried thinking I don’t have any skill or talent for it. And just when I thought I won’t be exposed to the Kdrama syndrome like some of my friends, I decided to give in and join the bandwagon of being “eaten” by a craze of interesting story plots, dreamy places to add to my lakwatsa list, never-before heard but sensible life lessons, unexplored life and kitchen hacks and not to forget dashing Kdrama oppas.   

And speaking of discovery, it was on this year I discovered a lot about people. It's nice to have asked a number of questions to some which made me get to know them more -- even if it meant asking the questions I should have asked some 18 years ago.

But the best thing this year and the situation associated with it had showed me was how God was ever present despite the tough situation. Sure the unemployment thing caused me to be afraid and worried, in the nine months of being in that situation, He never failed to make His presence felt by providing for our needs and keeping us afloat in this challenging time --to the point that I sometimes end up saying we don’t feel like we are struggling despite the pandemic. Having someone powerful up there looking after us and keeping us safe at a time of fear and worry was something to be thankful for and in some ways, be calm about. 

In a few hours, 2020 will soon be over. And as this old year leaves and gets over and done with, I hope that the unfortunate events do too. No more of a shit-filled year that was twenty fucking twenty. I hope and pray that as we welcome 2021, may this new year bring in some positive vibes, better things, hope and a wonderful chance for me to rise from the ashes and begin again.