2020: The Most Unexpected Year of Them All

To call the year 2020 a year an unexpected one would be an understatement. While the world went through phases of lockdowns it felt like life had simply stopped and that it’d never go back to the way it was. And I am sure that I wasn’t the only one to feel the shock and the uncertainty. 

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Human beings are creatures of plans and actions. We like planning for years ahead and the pandemic just shattered that notion. We were all left to feel untethered. While things might be getting better now, it is also true that adversity teaches you a lot. Hence, the year 2020 was also a learning experience. This is how I experienced my life as the world around me underwent a pandemic: 

Phase 1 

I had just finished my internals and two days later we received a notice from college telling us that college won't be working anymore due to COVID-19. 15th of March, 2020 was the last time I travelled on a local train, reached college, gave an exam, ate with my friends in the canteen and hugged my best friend for the last time (for a while). 

On the 24th of March, we received the news of my maternal grandfather's demise, but nothing could be done as he lived in U.P. and we were stuck in Maharashtra. Mom cried the entire afternoon and talked to my aunts and uncle but that's all they could do to console each other. In the evening, the prime minister announced that there will be a complete lockdown which sent people into a frenzy. 

My parents were also amongst the people who ran to the medical shop and the grocery store to buy essentials. This was exactly something that shouldn't have been done because this resulted in hundreds of people getting on the streets but can we really blame them? This was a never seen phenomenon and there were no clear instructions, of course, people were anxious. 

I was personally still in denial about the whole situation. The college started taking online lectures, so there was a sense of structure and certainty. The house help wasn't coming anymore, so I also got busy helping mom. I gave myself constant tasks to distract myself. I was also working out at home. 

My younger brother's last exam was cancelled, so for him, it was a summer vacation but a sad one. I kept thinking that now I had enough time to watch all the shows and the movies in the world but I couldn’t have been more wrong. Even though we were all staying at home, it suddenly felt like there was no time to do anything else. So much has happened and yet it feels like so little has happened. 

Phase 2 

Around this time things started getting blurry. I don't remember the dates anymore, and every day seemed the same. I didn't mind staying at home, to be honest. Both my brother and I are introverts, so the situation was pretty close to ideal. 

College lectures were still taking place, and there weren't many changes in my schedule. The cases were rising, but not as much, a few hundred cases every day I believe. Mom is a great cook, so we were getting to eat good food. I think we were pretending that things will get back to normal soon.

Phase 3 

I believe somewhere between phase 2 and phase 3 the local trains stopped working. So Dad stopped going to work and that was when it really hit me that things are getting serious. I don't think local trains have stopped entirely ever. 

This is also the time when our professor told us that we may have to give online exams and while I was alright with the idea of writing an exam, the idea of online vivas absolutely horrified me. It gave me a lot of anxiety. At the same time, the lectures stopped taking place regularly, as the government announced that exams weren't going to take place. My days lost structure. I also stopped working out regularly. My parents wanted me to be more productive with my time because according to them I wasn't being productive enough, so we got into arguments. 

There were two or three days where I was just constantly crying and that was definitely the point where everything hit me all at once - the uncertainty of the situation, the rising cases, the realisation that this might take some time before things get normal. During this time, however, we'd go for walks on the terrace with all the necessary precautions. At home, I felt like I wasn't doing my best because my parents wouldn't stop pointing that out. This paralysed me.

I didn't feel like doing anything. It was clear that all of us were irritated and scared by the situation, but if I were to point this out, they'd very definitely have said that I was trying to blame something else for my laziness. After a week of this happening during which I had started working out, I had a terrible stomach ache at 2 am, now this wouldn't be that scary in other circumstances. But exactly a year before I had been hospitalized because of health issues that started exactly like this, and in the current situation visiting a hospital felt even riskier. I recovered from the stomach ache in around a week. But it was a terrible week. 

So after those two weeks that were horrifying in phase 3, I regained some sanity and the college cancelled our vivas, they just asked us to submit written assignments, which was during the first week of June. So I got busy with completing college work. 

I remember having a conversation with my best friend where she was angry that I hadn't taken the initiative to call her for some weeks. And it was understandable, I felt guilty but I also didn't want to unload everything I went through on her. So I apologised.

Phase 4 - 5/ Unlock 1

By the 4th phase, days had all blurred into one another. I'm not even sure the events I've mentioned above are in the correct chronological order. But they did occur during the same time. Currently, I feel at peace. 

I tried doing everything in moderation - not too much or not too little. I ate well, I exercised on alternate days, I helped mom with whatever I could. I came to terms with the fact that the world had changed. I stopped expecting myself to come out of the pandemic with extra skills or having achieved something because I realised that I was putting too much pressure on myself. I realised that my privilege had provided me with the safety of even thinking whether I can be happy or not even in such times. And I should be grateful for that. 

One can make a significant impact on happiness and wellbeing by resetting the bias we often hold toward the negative and sparking upward spirals. While positive psychology covers many disciplines and areas, many scholars and practitioners have focused on maximizing the benefits of five factors essential to happiness and wellbeing: positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment (often known as PERMA) (Roy, 2020)

Thus, I've used my days to read more and learn more, build stronger relations and focus on what I can control. Books, music, art and my family has helped me get through 2020. And I hope that anyone reading this finds solace in little things too.