If someone told me February was three years ago, I’d believe them. Never has a year gone slower and never have months all moulded together in what feels like one, long, Monday morning. However, I recall one night particularly vividly.
Remember when Storm Dennis was all we had to worry about? I got stuck down a dark country lane one of those blustery nights, on my way to my parents. When I arrived, the news that Caroline Flack had died came up on my phone. Like most of the country, it rocked me more than the death of a stranger should. I think partly, because we all knew our guilty pleasures found in the sidebars of shame and the wider problems they create may well have played a part.
We were implored from there on in to ‘be kind’, and largely we began to be. When we were ordered indoors on March 23rd, we found ourselves being very un-British, banging our woks in gratitude for our NHS and checking in our neighbours.
Lockdown: The Original Edition did us some good. Our lack of being able to have what we wanted, and having it on Prime made us reassess, tone it down and see if number 46 wanted the parsnips we were going to throw in the bin. We were relishing in training our hair to be washed less, and were finding real solace in spending entire Bank Holiday weekends at home, rather than tear-arseing between three lunches a day. We were saving money, learning to bake and trying to make the most of it.
We walked. We memed. We watched Tiger King.
But as the year progressed, our ‘all for one’ attitude waned. Come VE Day our Brexit style tribalism returned. We were no longer just ‘leave’ or ‘remain’. We were now ‘abide’ or ‘flout’ and felt no way of taking to our community Facebook pages to absolutely call out those in the cul-de-sac along for being solely to blame for the fact you couldn’t hug your Nan because they’d done the hokey-cokey at their street party.
We bumbled through the summer confused. We were either eating out to help out or being told we were totally irresponsible for including toddlers in our sanctioned six person headcount.
We walked some more. Memed some more. Watched I May Destroy You & lost all notion of a work-life balance.
Then came the tiers, the second lockdown and a complete and unbridled case of Zoom lethargy.
And now we find ourselves here, having experienced the oddest, in parts saddest, in parts calmest of Christmas’. A time that hasn’t always seen us checking in on others like we’ve done all year, but instead and rather oddly reflecting on the year by playing games of 2020 Top Trumps via WhatsApp with friends to ascertain who really had the worse year.
10 points to you for a hospital stay but 13 points for me for the exacerbation of my mental health problems.
5 points to you for a cancelled wedding and 5 points to me for missing a milestone birthday.
6 points deducted because I’ve got a garden but a bonus point for not joining TikTok.
20 points deducted for admitting growing lethargic of the Thursday night clap, but a bonus point for saying ‘we’re lucky, really’ in every conversation you’ve had since April despite having a loved one in a care home.
In the last few weeks, it’s as though we’ve found ourselves in digital ping pong matches try to out-crap one another in a ghastly game of one-up-manship.
One person’s ‘I’m just finding being at home so tough’ is met with another’s ‘but, you know I had to take a pay cut, right?’
As we approach the end of this testing year, let’s stop trying to beat one another.
Loosing a loved one, your job, your sanity, growing plain tired of your living room, it’s all valid. Cases of anxiety caused by people saying ‘it’s fine, we’ve not been far, pop in’ hold equal weight to those caused because you’ve got underlying health issues or because you plain just don’t understand your 8 year old’s homework.
Frankly, it’s been a shitter all round.
So let’s head into the new year remembering that.
And take a leaf out of February’s book.
By approaching 2021 by just being a bit kinder.