2020 – the year the world stood still

2020 – A year to forget?

Well. Where do I begin with this jerk of a year! It started off normal enough. Waking up slightly hungover, I started to record one second of video everyday so that by the end of the year, I could look back at 365 seconds of what I thought was going to be an awesome year. Wrong!!

As the virus took over, plans were scuppered and weddings were cancelled. We went into a national lockdown, something that I thought only happened in films. But we adapted. Zoom quizzes and Joe Wicks workouts became the norm. I planned to use the down time to learn Spanish, play more piano and do creative things like drawing (but mainly ended up cracking open a beer and sitting in a paddling pool all day!) It became a year where we clapped for the amazing NHS every week and conversations were ended with, “Stay safe”.

When things gradually opened up and weddings began taking place again, albeit with tighter restrictions, I felt like I was back where I was supposed to be. The handful of awesome couples who pushed ahead with their weddings can wear the fact that they got married in 2020 as a badge of honour. OK, there were no packed dancefloors but the essentials were still there. Friends, family, love and amazing moments.

Below is an amazing poem about the pandemic by Kitty O’Meara. I love it, it perfectly sums up the year.

And the people stayed home.
And read books, and listened,
and rested,
and exercised,
and made art,
and played games,
and learned new ways of being,
and were still.
And listened more deeply.
Some meditated,
some prayed,
some danced.
Some met their shadows.
And the people began to think differently.

And the people healed.
And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways,
the earth began to heal.

And when the danger passed,
and the people joined together again,
they grieved their losses,
and made new choices,
and dreamed new images,
and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully,
as they had been healed.