My 2020 - A Year Like No Other

If you told me last New Year's Eve what this year would have looked like; I would have never predicted the events of what this year had in store. Going back to the first few months of the year, when everything was pretty much normal, I was still miserable; my mind consumed by my job and the struggles it entailed. However, socially, I was lucky to have a small group of friends who made me laugh and was grateful for them being in my life. Then the pandemic hit, being isolated at home at first seemed ok, luckily I was able to work from home, however, new pressures began at work and instead of turning to my friends; I was alone with no one to understand. One silver lining of the pandemic was that I was able to reflect on how can I say 'my past life' what I was doing with my time, what I was spending my money on and what my priorities were? The pandemic shone a light on all of this, I realised I could never go back to the way I was. 

This year I have also discovered I suffer from anxiety, I think I've always had mild symptoms however, with being isolated, not being able to go abroad and me being even more frightened of the unknown, I felt I was spiralling and losing control. However, even though I still struggle with my anxiety, I have learnt to take each day as it comes (this has been difficult) and have learnt to breathe and know everything in the end will be okay even though sometimes it really doesn't feel like that. For me, what has helped is music - the healing power it has is everything and without it I feel I would have definitely crumbled this year. One of my favourite lyrics of Taylor Swift's Folklore is 'Time, Mystical Time / Cutting Me Open Then Healing Me Fine...' 

What I've learned this year is that anything could happen, and I could worry and cry but in the end we just don't know what could happen to us, one of the most powerful things we can do is hope. Hope for the better and there's nothing more we can do than 'To Live For The Hope of It All'....