I began 2020 desperately wanting wholesale change in my life. At the time, I was primarily thinking career and maybe location. Music as a career was no longer cutting it. I was tired of living perpetually a month away from being on the street. (Yes, things had gotten that bad!) I was also tired of certain people in my life that I didn’t feel like I could shake.
At the beginning of 2020 I was also dreaming about traveling. In one of the journals I keep, periodically the name of a place came to mind, and I wrote it down. At one point, Dallas, Texas, came up, as a place that was booming, had jobs, and had places to live. At another, California (the whole state) came up. That one confused me. At the time, I reasoned that it was more for traveling than for residing, and I even had a few different friends, unprompted, invite me to visit them out there.
I finally identified my current employer in March as a place I wanted to apply to. A friend of mine who worked in a hospital was able to pull some strings and get me an interview (and a job offer!) there as well. I preferred the place that became my place of employment. My vision was coming in to focus. At the end of March I would transition. I would tell my primary employer-at-the-time that I was moving on, and April (or whenever) would be when I began the new chapter. The idea was also that I would have a couple weeks off so I could go travel. Because, as far as I was concerned, I was overdue. I had even researched Amtrak rides to San Francisco and Los Angeles and back.
And that’s actually more or less what would happen. The time off, at least. But not quite in the way I envisioned.
You don’t plan for a pandemic. I do have some friends who call the coronavirus a “plan-demic.” And maybe it is. As far as I’m concerned, it’s irrelevant which it is. Bottom line is, it’s still here and it’s not going away just yet. And so while you just don’t plan for a pandemic, I have had to plan for it nonetheless, even though back in February and early March it wasn’t in my plans.
And so, this pandemic gave me a one-month vacation, basically the month of April. I did a staycation, out of multiple levels of necessity. Train-tripping it out to California was out of the question. But then the new job began, and I felt like my personal quarantine was over. I got hired for an “essential position.”
My job has blessed me abundantly. I’m largely out of debt (I’m out of all my debts to money-loaning corporations, anyway). I’ve been saving up like crazy for a few months now. Gotta keep going, though. I’ve personally experienced having large sums of my money disappear before, both from my own reckless spending and due to circumstances outside my control. Even though I likely now have more money at my disposal than ever, I also know it can be gone in a flash.
The other blessing of 2020 was something I didn’t go into planning for, which is a relationship with a wonderful special someone that I’m hoping and dreaming and (almost) planning to spend the rest of my life with. The “almost” is due to not quite having enough funds to pull it off now. But it’s been an amazing ride, something that both she and I periodically remind each other.
It’s funny also to look at 2020 through the eyes of the world around us. Short answer: “it’s all bad. One bad thing after another bad thing. Pandemic, quarantine, injustice, rioting, protesting, more pandemic…” (heh, funny how the pandemic appeared to “take a break” in late-May and early-June when all the protesting and rioting was taking place… hmmm…) “…more injustice, more pandemic, more quarantine, more protesting and rioting… oh look, the pandemic’s second wave is hitting us, we gotta quarantine harder than we did before…” and so on.
I should make clear in this moment my intent is not to mock the year or the common sentiments. I get it: for a lot of people it has been a very hard and very rough year. And for that, I’m sorry; I wouldn’t wish the year you had on anyone. And, the Bible makes it clear that mocking others is not ok. That’s not my plan. It’s just to point out that, for a lot of people, 2020 is and will forever be considered “a bad year.”
As for me? I’ve been blessed, doubly, triply, five-fold blessed, maybe even ten-fold blessed. I got a new car, I got a new job, I got a new girlfriend, I got out of debt, my dad and I have been able to move beyond “one month away from being out on the street,” I’m back in school, and I’ve been fortunate for the first real time in my life to build up some serious savings. And there are more blessings I know of on the way that I wish not speak of as of yet. Personally, I would say 2020 has been a very good year. Even with all the tension and stress and anxiety and anger around me.
2020 also led me to be able to slip out of my old life and into a new one, in ways that I don’t think would have been as easy or possible without a pandemic occurring. Chiefly, a pandemic kills the ability for doing gigs, which was what I had wanted a year ago to shift my career more towards. Even though I know instrumental lessons can be done over Zoom, I was done with piano lessons after some experiences I had the previous year. And, as much as I valued the Vineyard for what it had given me when I was completely down on life 11 years ago, there were a few points along the way that began signaling me that it would soon be time to leave. And I think, for me to slip out one space and into another, I needed this year for all of what it was.
As for me? I’ve been blessed, doubly, triply, five-fold blessed, maybe even ten-fold blessed. I got a new car, I got a new job, I got a new girlfriend, I got out of debt, my dad and I have been able to move beyond “one month away from being out on the street,” I’m back in school, and I’ve been fortunate for the first real time in my life to build up some serious savings. And there are more blessings I know of on the way that I wish not speak of as of yet. Personally, I would say 2020 has been a very good year. Even with all the tension and stress and anxiety and anger around me.
2020 also led me to be able to slip out of my old life and into a new one, in ways that I don’t think would have been as easy or possible without a pandemic occurring. Chiefly, a pandemic kills the ability for doing gigs, which was what I had wanted a year ago to shift my career more towards. Even though I know instrumental lessons can be done over Zoom, I was done with piano lessons after some experiences I had the previous year. And, as much as I valued the Vineyard for what it had given me when I was completely down on life 11 years ago, there were a few points along the way that began signaling me that it would soon be time to leave. And I think, for me to slip out one space and into another, I needed this year for all of what it was.