2020: An Unexpected Teacher

This post is a part of Writerly, a series of daily prompts given in January 2021 to spur creative writing and reflection. Day 1’s prompt was: What did 2020 teach or reveal to you?

On December 31, 2019, if you would have asked me how I was feeling going into 2020, I would have shamelessly told you that I was incredibly optimistic. There was no doubt in my mind - this was the year of ME.

I am without a doubt an intense planner in many aspects of my life, and 2020 was promising to be quite the year. I had just secured my first full-time internship, making me about ten steps closer to financial independence than I was before with my student worker job. I was in the midst of planning my long-awaited summer studying abroad in Italy. I was preparing to run in my first ever undergraduate student government election for the position of senator at-large. I was back in my on-again, off-again long-term relationship from high school and I had what I thought to be a lifelong best friend by my side for all of it. Things felt right, yet at the same time, looking back, I can now tell you that they also felt very wrong. I didn’t know what or how, but I knew that life was going to change for me this year. Man, was I right about that one, just not in the way I had planned.

A global pandemic has a really funny way of showing you exactly who you are, even if you didn’t ask to be shown.

By the time lockdown started in March, things had already taken a hefty turn. My internship had just announced that the entire company had been moved to fully remote. My study abroad dreams were becoming more and more out there as Northern Italy had quickly become the new global epicenter of COVID-19. My senatorial campaign had just come to a successful close, but I was exhausted from meeting and engaging with hundreds of students throughout the campaign season. On top of all of that, my relationship had crumbled and my cherished friendship along with it a little bit later. Basically, at this point, sh*t was hitting the fan.

This was the beginning of my first lesson of 2020 - that you can plan out every detail and things can still go awry in any way imaginable. A virus definitely was not on my mind as something that could ruin my plans when the year began, but so is life. Faced with the toppling of society all around me, I also found the foundations of who I had believed myself to be come crashing down before me as well. I had rooted my identity in being a busy body - getting involved on campus in every way possible, working myself to a hollowed version of my own being. I felt stretched beyond thin and left myself no time to make sure that I was okay, deep down. The truth is, I absolutely wasn’t.

Pre-2020, self-care was a rather foreign concept to me. I didn’t exercise, rarely cooked, binge-watched hours upon hours of Netflix in any precious free time I had, slept for a few hours a night, went out with friends a little too often, and had absolutely NO idea how to formulate a sleep schedule. I was a mess and my emotions reflected it. I was a slave to the grind - everything I had I gave, leaving nothing for myself. I felt exhausted constantly. I had low self-confidence. I was emotionally dependent on others for my happiness. I often found myself comparing myself to others and feeling like an utter failure at life as a result. I was barely getting by even though I seemed to be killing it on the surface.

Once all of my glorious plans for the year had been stripped from me, all that was left was me. I decided to stay at my college house with one of my other roommates, while the other three left, leaving us here in our big house alone. I spent more time than ever with my own thoughts, with an abundance of free time at home that I had never known before. At this point, it was time to look in the mirror and decide if I was okay with spending all that time with myself. My life didn’t end with the shutdown, and I had to decide at that moment if I was going to let my inability to be constantly surrounded by others while being booked and busy ruin my life. Thus began my journey to discovering all of the ways in which we can choose to take care of ourselves, to love ourselves, each and every day. At that moment, I had only chosen self-destruction, but I was ready to heal and move forward.

In the beginning, I essentially forced myself into a new routine of living. One that centered around making sure that I was okay first, before trying to cater to others. I wanted so desperately to be satisfied with my own life and with myself, that I was willing to start completely over and really buckle down. I started cooking nutritionally rich meals for myself, guzzling water each day, going to bed and waking up early, exercising daily, meditating, and reading. Slowly, I found myself beginning to feel more and more whole. I found peace in the small moments that made up my day. My steaming hot cup of coffee. The way my bedroom would fill with sunlight at certain moments of the day, feeling almost heaven like. The feeling of release I felt when I finished an intense workout. The excitement of starting an intriguing new book or podcast. I was finding joy in the largely unglamorous parts of my life. I was finding my joy in the present. Somehow I had lost everything that I thought was going to make this year the best one yet, while simultaneously gaining everything that I could have ever wanted for myself.

I am at a remarkably different place now than I was a year ago. I was lost trying to figure out what my identity was and who I was supposed to be to others, to the world. I looked everywhere but inside of myself for the answers. I winced at the thought of the future, and the idea of not having a school, a group of friends, or a social life to hang on to once my college years ended. My identity was so deeply rooted in the external parts of my life, that I couldn’t fathom the idea of having it all stripped away and being left with nothing but my own self to pick up the pieces. I am still uncertain of what exactly my future will hold, but I now am more comfortable walking into the unknown than ever before. The only difference between then and now is that I know I am stepping into the future with a sense of assurance in myself that will carry me through anything.

2020 taught me lessons that I could have never seen coming but were absolutely necessary for my growth and formation into the Makayla that exists today. Had this year not played out the way that it did, I’m not sure how long it would have taken me to learn these lessons, but I have a feeling it wouldn’t have been for some years to come. While this year was not one I would ever want to repeat, I am endlessly grateful to 2020 for quieting the noise and revealing to me the truth that I had been ignoring for so long - that saying ‘yes’ to myself, choosing myself, loving myself, was not an option if I wanted to live a life of fulfillment. It is absolutely necessary.