It’s time for saying goodbye to 2020. Where did this year go? Last year this time, we had no idea that 2020 would be the year that would change so many things around us. We had no idea that 2020 would become the year of the pandemic. The pandemic movies we had seen would suddenly seem real. I remember reading about the Ebola outbreak in 2014 and vaguely remember the SARS outbreak around 2002 or 2003. But never in my wildest imagination did I picture living in a time when going out without masks was incomprehensible. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that my daughter would attend her kindergarten via Microsoft Teams, that school, office and all kinds of celebrations would be online. But that’s the truth of 2020, for it taught us to live in a pandemic. It showed us how vulnerable the world is to a pandemic.

2020 has been a great teacher in many ways. It has changed our perspectives on so many things in life. It has reminded us to value what matters the most in life, our family and home. We never know if the future we are working towards will be there at all, so if there is something that we want to do, we need to do it now. And we need to spend time with our loved ones before it’s too late. Yes, plan and work for the future but live today. 

After spending a year without seeing my parents due to this pandemic, I repent the years when I didn’t make a trip home while I could. I didn’t miss going out so much since I hardly went out before anyway. But I did miss going to the office where I could be just me. I also missed the lunch dates the husband and I used to venture out to during the pre-covid days. So, yes, there were things I missed, but there were some lessons learnt too.

I remember something from the initial days of lockdown. We had gone several days without bread because the situation was new, the food supply chain was still adjusting to the new normal when it so happened that one evening I walked in to see the shelves of the neighbourhood store stocked with bread for the first time in weeks. The joy I felt, I cannot describe to you. I got myself two loaves of bread and messaged in the apartment Whatsapp Group about the treat awaiting them in the store. You wouldn’t believe the exclamations of joy. It’s funny how one wouldn’t have noticed this before the pandemic, but now even the smallest of wins and the simplest of pleasures seemed so important.

The world outside my window changed during this pandemic, 2020 far from being cancelled affected our lives irreversibly. #Goodbye2020 #NabaSays Share on X

2020 taught us how much we were living in excess. I realised I didn’t need even half the clothes I had in my cupboards. It has been at least nine months since I bought a single piece of clothing, and it feels good. But what waste I had subscribed to before that. The clothes, shoes and cosmetics. It’s funny how I needed a pandemic to teach me this when my dad was right there practising it all along. And it’s not only me. I have seen many around me realising that and it’s a good thing too. I just hope this sustains well past the COVID era.

The pandemic this year also helped me to spend time with my daughter. It was the first time since she was six months old that she could stay at home with us on weekdays without going to daycare. We weaned her off diapers too which we had been postponing indefinitely before the pandemic because we needed our sleep during weeknights. Small mercies! Then I could also focus on decorating my home, in a way that I couldn’t in the six years before 2020 because there was never the time. Now, not having to commute gave me time that I never had before.

But some of the most significant learnings from 2020 were in terms of our world. 2020 taught us that our essential workers must be paid and respected more. It taught us how important it is to teach our children to admire and emulate the doctors, nurses and researchers without whom we wouldn’t survive. It showed the companies that working from home isn’t as impractical as they thought before, that people could work from home while taking care of their families. The work could, in fact, be done even at a war footing when we take out unnecessary travel associated with working from offices. It showed the men how much unpaid word the women in their lives do. It also showed how essential online services are and the work done in keeping them functioning is not indispensable either. Basically, 2020 taught us what our priorities ought to be as opposed to what they were.

You could say, 2020 was a terrible year with some valuable lessons in between. It gave some of us the gift of time but also took away a great deal from us. We have all lost someone or the other due to or during the pandemic. Those are people lost we will never get back which is a pain that cannot be fathomed. Due to the pandemic, it has been hard to stay far from our loved ones too. But we all did it anyway. Tough times call for tough measures.

While saying goodbye to 2020 is something we have been looking forward to, I step cautiously into 2021. 2020 has been scary. What’s perhaps even worse is that 2021 doesn’t seem encouraging either. But maybe this time around, we are more prepared mentally. Also, this time around, we know that we are more resilient than we think we are. The world outside my window changed during this pandemic, 2020 far from being cancelled affected our lives irreversibly but I just hope going forward things get better. I hope our loved ones stay safe and the world heals having learnt from our past mistakes. 

Happy New Year!