If you haven’t felt the effects of this year, then please find something else to read. This is not for the person who is #blessed or feeling like they have become the best version of themselves this year. No. This is for the person who is dragging their ass behind them, limbs falling off while army-crawling and screaming out in anguish to the finish line of 2020. For all I’m concerned, 2020 can suck it, and if you share this sentiment with me, please continue on!
This year started off with hope. The promise of better days to come. Some would even say that “This was my year” — or at least supposed to be. With January came putting plans into action as always. For some reason, this year felt more important than others. I knew it would be exactly what we all needed. A fresh start into a new decade. Then February came along. Things were moving along just fine. We reached the middle of the month where we typically celebrate love, and boy, did I feel special this year. It was just going to be one of those amazing years, I knew it.
Then we had March. People were talking about this coronavirus thing and it was hard to tell if there were just rumors or some truth to this. Are we dealing with fear-mongering in an age of wild media? Who knows, but it was almost spring break for the kids, and they were talking about taking an extra week to see how things played out. No biggie, right? I’m sure everyone’s employers won’t mind if we have to stay home a week or two to work remotely. Surely mass amounts of people will not lose their jobs over lack of childcare and circumstances out of our control thanks to a global pandemic. Calm down, Karen — you can *insert extreme sarcasm and eye-rolling* here.
Then before I knew it, the end of the 2019-2020 school year came and went. I had been homeschooling a child whose homework I couldn’t understand pre-online learning. Let alone log her in every 25 seconds for virtual school while I managed my own job. Did I mention the 4-year-old running circles around us and screaming for his butt to be wiped while I’m on a conference call? Oh yeah, that happened, and I’m sure you have horror stories of your own work-life cross-contamination that should NEVER be a reality.
Then it was a never-ending summer filled with the lack of summer camps, reduced hours for child care, and oh yeah, we’re wearing masks everywhere we go and using hand sanitizer like it’s a new fluid our body can’t live without. Parents are being forced to decide if they will send their children back to school or keep them home while watching the whole entire country handle this GLOBAL PANDEMIC completely opposite from each other on a local level. WHAT. IS. HAPPENING.
Eventually, the kids were able to go back to school–ish. Whether you sent them back in person, homeschooled, or opted to send them back after nine weeks, this was not normal back to school. Kindergartners started without ever getting to walk through the big hallways and parents never got to shake the teacher’s hand and apologize in advance for all of the social skills they lost. Like for real, did anyone else’s kids forget how to be normal the last few months!? 2020 kids are savages.
Then we have what we all know is coming. The election. Flu season. Wave two. The holidays. Scenarios could all fit into a damn horror movie — or at least one of the billion Netflix documentaries we will all be binge-watching in the years to come. I have nothing to say about any of them, to be honest. Between watching friends go through brutal divorces, the trolls verbally assaulting strangers on the internet, families scrambling financially, and loved ones being lost, my give-a-damn about things out of my control is just really low.
Even though we are in the home stretch of 2020, the NEVER ENDING year. The idea of the clock striking midnight on December 31st and the world not going back to what we thought it would be in January is almost too painful to think about. At any moment I’m sure we can all wake up from this hell but for now, you can join me in saying, 2020 CAN SUCK IT!
