2020: What I'm Grateful For
I honestly can't believe we are nearing the end of 2020. Most of it felt so challenging, often shocking, and so pain-stakingly slow sometimes that I wasn't sure the end of the year would ever come. I'm sure this year, especially, has us all reflecting on a lot: thinking back to where we all started, how we first felt when the pandemic hit, when we were smack dab in the middle of it, and how we've adjusted to what is our new normal for the foreseeable future.
I have so much I want to leave behind and never revisit: the memories of all the time I lost my patience with my family, crying in the shower more times than I'd like to admit, the feelings of isolation and loneliness, the worrying. I chose right now, however, to focus on the bright spots of this year. It was hard, indeed, but it wasn't always hard. Here are some of the things I'm incredibly grateful for in 2020...
Starting 2020 on the Right Foot
On January 2nd, 2020, I started taking care of myself. I had gained a shocking amount of weight over the last few months and had totally stopped putting myself at any kind of a priority. I started Weight Watchers and began regularly excising again. By the time the pandemic shutdown happened in mid March, I was exercising at least 4 times a week and had lost some weight. More importantly, I had healthy routines in place.
I, like most people by the time summer rolled around, had emotionally ate myself silly and had stopped working out. It felt like there wasn't time. It felt emotionally and physically exhausting and I didn't have anything left to give. So, by June, I just didn't do it anymore. I was so grateful I had a better, healthier grip on my day-to-day before this all happened or I have no idea where I'd be.
Bravo
People, I love the channel Bravo... everything on it. The housewives of anywhere, Below Deck, Summer House etc, etc, etc gave me something to take my mind off of everything. When the pandemic first hit in March, I was obsessively watching the news when I woke up and as I was laying in bed at night and I wasn't sleeping. Watching 20 somethings going to a busy Hampton's bar that was filmed in July of 2019 was just what I needed. As the shutdown continued, Josh and I started yelling at the TV, "You have no idea how good you have it!!! Eating in a restaurant?! Walking around the crowded streets of New York City?! Traveling?!" Sigh. Thank you, Andy Cohen, for doing Watch What Happens Live from your house.
Music
Music has been my savior during all the happiest and saddest moments of my life. For the last nine months, I have found some songs that deeply touched my soul. Sobbing while listening to Kasey Musgraves' "Rainbow" or Branches' "After the War" gave me an outlet I so desperately needed when I felt hopeless and about to lose my mind. Discovering Quinn XCII's "Right Where you Should be" while driving through Yellowstone National Park gave me immense peace that our careful traveling was exactly what we should be doing. Blasting Harrison Storm's "Sea and Fire" as we drove around the cliffs and oceans in Maine will always hold a special memory.
During the quarantine I liked my first Taylor Swift song. Yes, you read that right. My entire family can belt out "Exile" like nobody's business. She should play more piano and keep collaborating with Bon Iver from the gospel according to Kristin (I'm obviously a big fan of the song "Evermore" too).
The Hamilton soundtrack came to us in June and we couldn't get enough. I also found new bands to fall in love with. Radical Face tops that list.
Creative people kept creating through all of this and I reaped the benefits of having some amazing new music fall into my lap. Music helps me feel better, always. Period.
Nature
Quarantine 2020 turned me into an outdoors(wo)man! I think I have more to say on this topic, but to keep it simple for now, hiking out in the woods saved my family. There was a large chunk of time where even playgrounds were shutdown. I live with very active humans and eventually our trampoline lost it's shine in the spring. Whether it was in the woods in my neighbor's backyard, Meridian Township, Yellowstone National Park, Black Hills National Forest, Acadia National Park, or in the middle of freaking nowhere in Montana, South Dakota, or Maine, we were walking and climbing for hours and hours and hours.
If someone would have told me last year at this time that my family would all own hiking shoes, I would've said you were completely out of your mind. Nature has always been one of the only places I ever sat still and felt calm. Now nature is also a place where I can move for miles and also feel calm.
People Who Care
If you've read anything I've wrote in the last nine months, you know I've not been okay through most of this. I have not handled this pandemic well; you all are probably sick of reading that from me. When people asked me how things were going, I didn't lie. If I was having a hard time, I said it. If remote learning was challenging, I let out an earful. For much of the last nine months, I was deep in a hole and could not dig myself the F out.
However, I have some incredible people in my life that I am incredibly lucky to know. My family and friends checked on me... a lot. Simple texts, handwritten notes, phone calls. Dropping off treats, cocktails, crafts. I will never be able to articulate how much it meant for people to let me know their day was a dumpster fire or goat rodeo (my two most common phrases of the 2020 quarantine). It made me feel less alone and more connected.
There were Zoom calls with friends after kids went to bed, virtual happy hours, House Party games, Netflix Party episodes of Love is Blind, distance walks. I appreciated every single one of those moments, every one. They filled me up, truly.
I really love my people and have missed them terribly, but they kept showing up. I hope people felt that same love and care from me as well.
As cliched as this is, I know time with my family is the number one takeaway from all of this- it's what we were all excited about when things first shutdown. It's what we will look back on with the brightest smile and warmest heart. Even though, as with everything, you can have too much of a good thing, I will always remember these months and months with all my favorite people together. There were afternoon movies, more bonfires than I can count, field day in our backyard, lunches together in the middle of the chaos, extra snuggles, extra games, extra playtime. I am truly knowledgable and invested in my children's education differently than I'd ever be if they were away from me at school. Josh hasn't traveled or been to his office since March.
Preston learned how to talk by his brothers' side. We dove in to a new country every week during the spring shutdown and the summer months. My boys became obsessed with Lego's and bike rides, and hikes. We climbed mountains together. I led art lessons and science experiments (two things I know nothing about). They may have no idea how to behave around strangers or in public anymore, but we know each other on a much deeper level. All of us are always wanting to slow down and spend more quality time. Well, we sure got that didn't we?
Someday my kids will go back to school and Josh will go back to the office and we'll all celebrate. In fact, we will celebrate BIG! I have already vowed never to complain about packing lunches or sending kids to school with winter gear ever again ;) When I want to run away and never come back it's hard to remember that the extra time is such a gift and such a blessing. I will look back and ache for this time- I know it.
One of the other things I'm grateful for in 2020 is this space; this place for me to write. I have written more blogs in 2020 than in any other year since. It was a place for me to vent, and capture memories, and have an outlet of release. I write to remember the life Josh and I have built with our family and if anyone else reads and connects with me, it makes my heart fill with so much joy. Thank you for reading- I appreciate you.
Happy new year to all of you. I have no idea what 2021 will bring. But, I am entering with hope.
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