Wow wow, we finally made it to the end of 2020.
Obviously, 2020 was….a BAD TIME, because of….*gestures broadly* all the things. On a smaller scale, I suffered a bunch of tiny bad things as well (getting rejected from a job I really wanted and then being unable to look for any new jobs because the world shut down ha ha ha, developing kidney stones, my IUD deciding to impale me internally, a host of other health issues that I can’t really deal with during a pandemic, my entire family getting Covid, my cat needing to be rushed to the vet multiple times…to name a few) which clearly pale in comparison to like…you know, the global crisis…but suffice to say, I was not sorry to see the end of 2020 (whomst among us was?)
All that said, there’s this: at some point amidst all of this, I started doing this mental exercise where I forced myself to make small gratitude lists, or to think about at least one positive thing every day so that I didn’t totally lose my mind. I fell out of doing this habitually (as I do with most things that are ‘good for me’ ha ha ha oops), but I did find it helpful for my overall mental state when I was keeping it up (and in the absence of THERAPY, I gotta do what I can for even the smallest crumb of serotonin, you feel me?)
With that in mind, and in an effort to not spiral into the black hole of “the hell-year hath ended and yet I am still trapped in my home and the pandemic continues and now that we have vaccines everyone is turning into an anti-vaxxer despite science based evidence proving that the vaccine is totally safe and Trump supporters are out here trying to start a civil war and the government is in shambles and oh my fucking GOD will we ever wake from this shared nightmare SOS,” (ahem), I have compiled a small list of things that didn’t suck for me about 2020/my time in quarantine:
I started writing for fun again
Both in the form of this weird newsletter, as well as some creative writing that I haven’t shared anywhere (and I’m not sure if I ever will, haha). It’s not much and none if it is very good (AS YOU CAN SEE), but after spending a lot of time away from writing, it feels nice to be working on it again.
I got a promotion at work
This is kind of a complicated one because it isn’t the promotion I hoped for, and I have a lot of ~feelings~ about my job in general. It also came at a weird time—I got promoted in April, while many other people were facing Covid-related layoffs. I didn’t really get to celebrate or talk about it at the time because it felt sort of tactless to do so, combined with the fact that I didn’t really feel that excited about it anyway. Still, it is a “good” thing that happened, it has made me slightly more financially secure, and even though I am stressed 105% of my time on-the-clock these days, I’m looking forward to seeing how my new role plays out, and hopefully it will open more doors for me to positions that I’ll actually be stoked for (I am assuming here that I don’t crash, burn, and get fired) (fingers crossed).
I spent a lot more time reading (56 books!) and a lot less time on the internet/social media
We all know it’s easy to spend our entire days in Instagram rabbit holes looking at people whose lives seem more interesting/more important/more beautiful than ours. I decided to…stop doing that, and I’m happier for it. I barely post on social media anymore, I don’t surround myself with people whose entire self-worth is focused on performing their lives for an audience of strangers on an app, and I try to spend like, a veeeery limited time scrolling anymore.
Reading is obviously a thing I enjoy and I’m happy to say I spent more time doing it this past year (in part because I was trapped inside with little else to do, haha) and hope to keep it up in 2021, too.
I moved w Matt to into an apartment and neighborhood that I love
Moving in the middle of a pandemic was sorta stressful, but I’m really happy with how things turned out. I’m kinda stoked about my weird little apartment. Shopping for and decorating kept me occupied during a time when I really needed distraction, I’ve been cooking way more, and my new neighborhood is much quieter/calmer than where I was living before. There’s a veg coffee shop two blocks away and I’m within walking distance to a bunch of my favorite bars (which has been inconsequential so far but it will be cool whenever we can re-enter society). I’m excited for spring, when I’m planning to overhaul our cute backyard and get into gardening, and assuming a return to some semblance of normalcy, maybe have some BBQs over the summer too.
Living with Matt is also ok, I guess…(ha ha ha jk it is very good) (even though he has basically stolen my cat’s heart and made me a third wheel in their relationship).
I started running!
This probably seems like not a very big deal, but for literally my whole life I have HATED running. I got made fun of in gym class for being a slow, uncoordinated little nerd, and it never got any better from there.
I still don’t particularly like running (I am also still a slow, uncoordinated little nerd), but once lock-down started and I couldn’t get to the gym—or leave my house much at all—I was looking for some way to move my body and jogging outside seemed like the best option. It took a lot of mental energy to get over being self-conscious about it, honestly. Anyway, I’m happy that I decided to start because even though it’s not my favorite thing in the world, I like that I can feel myself getting stronger and it is nice to have a regular “activity” to do outside of my apartment during these ~trying times~
Note: I doubt anyone reading this would give me a hard time, but just in case: yes I wear a mask, and also I run around the perimeter of a cemetery so there’s almost never any (living) humans in my path anyway :)
Last but certainly not least, my IG had a brief cameo in HBO’s "I'll Be Gone In the Dark" documentary (hahaha)
A true highlight, obviously.
Top Books of the Year
Took me a while to make my decisions about which books I read this year deserved mention here. I really liked a lot of the stuff that I read, for different reasons. After some WEEKs, here are the ones I most enjoyed…in no particular order:
Here are the top 5:
My Best Friend’s Exorcism, by Grady Hendrix
I was torn between this one and Grady’s newer book, The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires. I loved both of these and am now devouring the rest of everything he’s ever written. Ultimately I decided that My Best Friend’s Exorcism won out because I loved the weird 80s/90s nostalgia vibes, I loved the friendship between the main characters, and it was reading MBFE that inspired me to pick up an old writing project of my own (spoiler: it involves best friends and spooky circumstances).
In the Dream House, by Carmen Maria Machado
This book is a memoir about being in an abusive same-sex relationship, which doesn’t sound like the sort of thing one might "enjoy” reading, but wow, this book was really powerful. The writing is really beautiful, even though it is about something so ugly. There were moments when I was reading this where I caught myself holding my breath, and I don’t say that about very many books. It’s heavy, but worth the read.
We Are Never Meeting in Real Life, by Samatha Irby
I talked about my obsession with Sam Irby in a newsletter already, so I won’t repeat myself except to say: This book was so funny, so good, and I want to find more essay collections that can make me cackle the way this one did (ie: hard enough to get a side-eye from my boyfriend in the next room).
Red, White, and Royal Blue, by Casey McQuinston
I talked about this one recently too, so again will be brief. I loved this book way more than I expected to and I wanna see Disney remake this into a fairytale.
You Should See Me in a Crown, by Leah Johnson
This was another very cute, queer, fairytale-esque book that I’d love to see in movie-form. Basically, the main character is trying to become her school’s prom queen, because the prom king and queen get a scholarship—which she desperately needs in order to go to the college of her dreams—except, Leah is not exactly ‘prom queen material.’ Not only that, but she finds herself developing a crush on Mack, another contender for prom queen. As you can imagine, drama ensues—but it’s all very cute and wholesome and coming-of-agey. Anyway, I laughed, I cried, and I highly recommend.
And because of who I am as a person (ie: painfully indecisive), here are other books that I felt deserved a mention:
Godshot by Chelsea Bieker (cults! mother-daughter relationship dynamics! coming-of-age!)
The Sun Down Motel, by Simone St. James (ghosts! haunted places! spooky!)
Home Before Dark, by Riley Sanger (mystery! thriller! twist I didn’t see coming!)
Ok ok, that’s all I got. I realize this is very late. I obviously had the best intentions of doing the whole “top of 2020” thing like, at the end of December…but, you know. In very 2020 fashion, I failed spectacularly at that. Sometimes you just gotta play the Sims, eat snacks, disassociate from reality, and avoid even your own self-imposed tasks. Shrug!
-Amy