A Reflective Roundup of 2020 — The Good, The Bad, The Beneficial
I’m currently sat on my sofa, calming face mask activated, cuddled up alongside my cup of ginger tea and the soothing sounds of Bossa Nova. Sitting and reflecting. On the lost adventures of 2020. On a life put firmly on hold, and made much less colourful, thanks to the dreaded C-word. On a virus that’s flipped the world on its head, and challenged our generation in ways we never thought possible. Spurred a series of global movements that have been long overdue. And confirmed that mon lounge is as far as I’ll be travelling for the foreseeable.
Of course there are blessings I’d be remiss to ignore. I’m here. I’m (mostly) healthy. I’m employed. And like me — my loved ones are safe and secure. And for that, I’m eternally grateful. And yet - that doesn’t seem to balance the scale against the challenges 2020 threw our way. The 10+ months lived largely under lockdown have certainly been fraught. Learning how to live without my ever-so-reliable daily joys (a weekend exploration of the city, idling away an afternoon in my favourite coffee shop, spinning, dancing with my girls, shutting the pub down on a school night just because) hasn’t always been easy. And the initial allure of a therapeutic daily walk is now long faded, replaced by the monotony of taking the exact same route through the marshes under grey winter skies — and the desperation to somehow get my 10k steps in. And then of course, there’s the acceptance that my biggest buzz of all, as well as my Grand 2020 travel plans, were wiped entirely off the map. (Excuse the pun.)
The sheer irony is the year started out so strong, right in the midst of what I thought would be the first of many adventures. 2020 kicked off in Miami, where I toasted the next 365 days round the sun with mi familia. And the Magic City managed to cast me under its spell, despite all my doubts and disillusions. We hit up the beach just in time to spot a double rainbow, ate our weight in Cuban food and mingled with enough Wynwood hipsters to satiate even this Clapton chica.
Then I was back on a plane across the Atlantic, and back into my world of work. Which conveniently sent me off to Madrid for business. And so naturally, I also booked some days off for play. I stationed myself in Malasaña, Madrid’s edgy urban neighbourhood, and I solo travelled my socks off. I strolled many a food market and savoured many a Rioja. I frequented cool thrift shops, stumbled on a memorable little wine-cum-bookshop event, found crystal heaven in El Rastro (the city’s epic flea / street market) and reminisced over cañas with a close friend about our years together in Barcelona. I was in my full travel stride, buzzing for what was yet to come.
Back in London, I prepped for my biggest backpacking adventure since 2018 - a two-week expedition through Northern India’s Rajasthan, hosted by The Wandering Quinn, and alongside my blogger bestie, The Smiling Food Journal. Not one to take such a long break so early into the year, I was over the moon at the prospect of a winter escape somewhere that’s topped my bucket list for most of my lifetime. And oh did it deliver.
With pitstops in Delhi, Agra, Jaipur, Jodhpur and a small Rajasthani village, it was a whirlwind tour containing all the things I look for in a good trip: the raw, the real, the rugged, the colourful. I sampled dosa and dhal, cycled through Delhi at dawn, experienced my first Ayurvedic massage + facial, watched a Bollywood film with locals and climbed more castles than I could count. But the creme de le creme moment was celebrating Holi (the festival of colours) at its true place of origin. I won’t be writing up any India blog posts (Ellie’s got that covered here), but I’ll share a series of my favourite photos — my “postcards from India” soon.
It was towards the back end of my time in India when the inklings of a global pandemic started to become large shoots. But in the height of my travel high, I remained blissfully unaware, until our final walking tour in Delhi when we were denied entry into the Lotus Temple “due to COVID.” It finally hit me: shit’s getting real. Later that day, a couple of the girls on our tour starting having trouble with their flights home and I realised the world was going to look very different upon my return.
I landed back in London to discover I was now to indefinitely WFH (work from home). This was shortly followed by Boris’s announcement of a countrywide lockdown (of course, this now feels like the norm) and learning how to live in the New World Order. These were the days of mass shortages in face masks and hand sanitiser, so I scrambled to find a face covering on eBay and thanked my lucky stars for stocking up on all things sanitation just before I left New Delhi.
And so it began.
Many lockdowns in, I’ve come to realise that Lockdown 1.0 was quite special. We were all just trying to wrap our heads around how to live in this new mode. Our home and work spaces were now merged, our fave hangouts were stripped away and we had no choice but to build new routines, within a confined space, from scratch. I recall a lot of workouts to ease my anxiety, a lot of loading of the dishwasher, a few failed “projects” for entertainment and a helluva lot of reflection. And oddly — I found so much of this new lifestyle incredibly reminiscent of backpacking life. I also found that I was enjoying a simpler, slower life. So much so I put together a blog post all about it — and the grand life lessons of lockdown. The weather gods also blessed us with an astonishing amount of sunshine, which made those early lockdown days a lot more bearable.
Restrictions in London loosened at the height of summer. And in this brief interlude, 2020 surprised me with perhaps the biggest change of all: a new, blossoming relationship. Ever of the skeptic of online dating, and of ever finding love again — I mean, remember this heartfelt breakup post? — I was pleasantly surprised to meet a great guy. Smart but fun, refined yet down-to-earth, creative, soulful, spicy and sweet. Someone who could really add a little extra something to my life, despite the fact that I was feeling rather fulfilled and content living life on my own. And isn’t that how it always goes? The moment you find peace with yourself and bid adieu to those pesky demons, the universe rewards you with some serious, serious magic.
But the good vibes didn’t stop there. Within weeks of meeting my new man, my offer on my dream flat was accepted — a beautiful two-bedroom just round the corner from home, and right along the water. Before I knew it, I was getting the balls in motion to finally own my own little pocket of London.
But with the sweet comes the sour.
In the midst of all this good fortune, I also found myself struggling to keep my head above water with work, the mountains of paperwork to make the house a reality and the general demands I put on myself to succeed, in pretty much every avenue of my life.
The stress took its toll, and physically manifested into labrintytis, a horrible (I mean horrible) virus caused by crystals in your inner ear canal which quite literally make the world spin. I woke up in the middle of the night, unable to see or walk straight, and ended up in hospital, clueless (and a little terrified) as to what was happening to me. When I finally worked out what was going on, I was hit with the dark reality that this state of being was going to linger for months. Whilst still living under a pandemic.
I had no choice but to take sick leave from work, grind my fitness to a halt and generally stop moving. An impossible challenge — to say the least — for someone wired like me. And so with that, my blogging mojo was wiped out too.
But as anyone who knows me will attest, nothing stops me from chasing the silver linings. Which in this instance happened to be nearly three weeks of recovery time in Valencia, Spain, with my new beau as my nurse. This was my first post-COVID flight, and Stansted Airport was eerily still, but it felt fantastic to land on new shores again. I was still weak, and couldn’t adventure at my usual pace, but some rest in the sunshine certainly helped soothe the soul.
Autumn flew by, in the hustle of my return to work, more house admin and some tiny nuggets of normality: a dinner here, a socially-distanced visit to the pub there. There were even a few turns on the spin bike. And then just before the lockdown doors slammed shut on us again, we managed a romantic escape to the Peak District, where we booked a few nights in a lovely manor house-hotel, hiked the peaks in torrential rain and treated ourselves to a tipsy tasting menu experience. The perfect last hurrah before the next chapter of Life Inside.
Then came Christmas. And for the first time in years, I didn’t book a flight back to Florida. It was a difficult decision, but for the sake of my parents’ safety, volatile COVID regulations making my return to London uncertain and the many moving parts around my (now very prolonged) flat purchase, I decided to stay put. And despite initial tears, I spent a beautiful break in my second home. I had more time than ever for relaxation and reflection. And no jetlag to anticipate. And so come midnight on the 31st, I was more than ready to toast my way into the new year, but with the acknowledgement that despite it all, 2020 has granted me a few fair gifts too: new love, a new home (incoming!), an opportunity for slower living and a reminder that nothing matters more than my health, both inside and out.
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