Letting go of 2020

For many of us, 2020 is a year to forget. How do we move on from 2020, somehow learning from the shit bits and holding onto the good bits? 

The shit bits

My mind feels full to the brim with the social, cultural and economic implications of what we’ve just lived through in 2020. Things like how students graduating from uni this year will struggle to find jobs, and how their lifelong incomes, earning potential and career progression will be set back. How the people who’ve survived COVID will continue to have health conditions long-term that we may only learn about in the years to come. How the birth-rate world-wide has dropped, and how women’s rights and gender equality could be set back years as women exit the workforce, taking on the impossible multiple roles of worker, home schooler and household organiser.

That’s a lot to take in.

The good bits

But there are the epiphanies we’ve had this year, too. Letting go of jobs that don’t serve us and relationships, marriages, friendships that suddenly became clear weren’t working. People are re-training towards different careers. This year I started a Masters of Health. I wanted to switch careers and felt it was the right time to go back to study. I kept getting ‘no’s’ in all quarters: from my current workplace and in countless job applications and interviews, somewhere in the range of 15-20 applications this year alone. Unexpectedly, my move to study became one of the defining points of my year, and forced me to let go of worries about juggling work, family and study. When you’re in the thick of it, you just keep going.

When I left uni 13 years ago I didn’t expect to go back. I was sick of cold flats, assignments and exams. But the experience of studying at Masters level has been entirely different. I’ve wanted to learn, and its been relevant to my work and interests in health and research. Perhaps if COVID hadn’t hit, I would have taken a different path, or not felt pushed to try something different.

Last month, I was offered a role at the Ministry of Education. I had to let go of my current workplace, and move to a different sector with different opportunities. I’d done what I could to move sideways into a new career and had to move on. I can’t wait to start my new role in policy in January 2021.

Yeah, nah

In 2020, it felt like we were finally allowed to utter the word we often deny ourselves. The favourite word of 18-month-olds everywhere: “No.”

It’s been ok to say no to visitors who are sick, no to going out as much, no to going to work when you can work from home (at times). But there were a lot of things we had to say no to, that were heartbreaking: Our son’s first birthday. My husband’s stepfather’s funeral (which never took place because of the lockdowns). Visits from family when our toddler was sick, special occasions lost because of illness (not COVID, but the regular but still debilitating kinds of illness of toddlers). And that has been really difficult. I can only imagine what it must be like in places like the UK where the alert levels have yo-yoed up and down and there is even less certainty.

The trick, I think, is knowing when to let go of things and when to carry on. When to grit your teeth and say “no” or “yes”. The uncertainty of the pandemic and the aspects of our lives affected by it – jobs, relationships, our sense of what’s important – has been hard to handle. But I do believe with time and following our instincts we can know what’s right for us; and what and who is worth holding onto. 

We should congratulate ourselves for getting here – December 2020.

I truly hope 2020 has brought some positive things and growth into your life. And if it hasn’t, 2021 is just around the corner.