The year 2020 will be a year where everyone in the entire world experienced something collectively that’s challenged and changed our normal of today and tomorrow. Every single one in this world has had to go through more or less the same challenges in order to continue beating this virus - and we’re still trying to beat this.
Our stories are different but they've more or else been impacted by how we are choosing to fight the coronavirus. Some of the stories are heart-breaking but they're true. I’ve seen and heard it from family, friends, colleagues and stories shared around the world. People have lost their jobs. People were forced to close their businesses for good. People have had give up their homes. People have had to flee to areas where the virus has not impacted so much. What's most hurtful is that people have lost loved ones. This is all true.
While stories have been as sad and frustrating, I've read as many uplifting stories from people and their personal journeys of how they've fought this virus physically and mentally. It's inspiring to read and hear of the resilience of people and their courage to share their stories. People have learned to do more things and utilise their home space when they were under restrictions and lockdown rules. People have learned to stay active even within the space of their four walls. People started to get in touch with more people via video chats. For those businesses who kept going through, they learned to adapt and anticipate what people needed. Businesses also learned to trust their employees and started working from home. Most importantly, people started to give time for themselves and others.
My journey in 2020 has been one of gratitude, self-reflection and self-care. I was lucky to have been able to continue working throughout 2020. I was lucky that my company demonstrated care and quick response and had everyone working remotely within the first week of the restrictions back in March. I was lucky to have had a rough over my head throughout this period and had all the necessary tools and equipment to let me work from home. Basically, I pretty much got what I wanted which was to work from home. And I really enjoyed every minute of it.
Working from home gave me back precious and important time for myself. I think a lot of people went through a similar experience of reflecting on ourselves. For me, I wanted more time to devote to my creative endeavours in drawing and film photography. With stricter scheduling, I found myself drawing almost every night. Drawing was a wonderful outlet of my emotions and stress from work. Less spending allowed me to put some money into buying the cameras I wanted. I even bought myself a set of rather expensive colouring markers from Japan. I probably wouldn’t have bought the tools I wanted and needed had I not had more time to think about my creative endeavours.
Being cooped in the house for a long duration of time with barely any places to go unless you were exempt from the lockdown restrictions meant little movement. While my health has remained more or less the same, the same can’t be said for the weight gain. While others may feel bad, I think the weight gain has come with some more happiness injected in to my life. My health club had to close for majority of the year. I resorted to the online videos and exercises provided and researched more ways of working out at home. And trust me, there’s a lot of content out there! I found just as much stimulation and motivation that I normally would have when I was going to the gym. In fact, it taught to be fastidious to making sure that I reminded myself to keep physically and mentally fit regardless of what was going on around me. This resilience made me proud of myself. To add to this, I also realised the self-care I was previously giving myself like paying up to $50 bucks just to get my SNS nails done and tempted to buy clothes that I see others wearing was not the self-care I needed. In fact, I was doing this more so due to social desires of inclusion and a fear of being left out. What kind of self-care is that?? I taught myself how to apply SNS nail colour myself and invested in my own kit so that I can do it myself any time I wanted. I also started to buy more clothes that made me feel more comfortable in without the need to worry about whether it was the trend. I bought clothes for me and not for the sake of looking for others. Throughout all that’s happened, I never forgot to care for myself, first and foremost, and cared for others around me.
While we were all in lockdown, I experienced a form of liberation - a freedom to wear clothes as I wanted, a freedom to draw and see myself progress, a freedom to take more time in thinking about what I want to photograph. All of these things kept my mental well-being chugging healthily. I am fortunate to have had little disruption to work. I know others haven’t been as fortunate as I am, but you can be guaranteed that I am counting my blessings every day and will continue to have carry this mindset in to 2021. The fight is far from over. I want to use the resilience, care and creative hum that I now have to drive me through this brand new year. I won’t be setting myself any new years resolutions as I feel we set ourselves too unrealistic a goal to ultimately disappoint ourselves as we reach the end of the year. I’ll choose to be more realistic with my goals and will look at setting myself achievable ones that are in line with my creative and health goals.
Let’s look up to the sky with determination and new hope. It’s 2021!