Hello! How’s it going? I do an annual review in December, which is also kind of a birthday post slash lessons I learnt from the year, but this year is like no other and I think it deserves a post of its own at this midyear-ish mark. Also full disclosure, I began writing this mid-July but as with all other things, life got in the way and we didn’t publish it.

So tell me first, how are you genuinely feeling? How is your heart?

For me at least, I had big plans for 2020. It was going to be my year. Before the year started I had already claimed ownership of it for a multitude of reasons and I was excited about what was to come. There was this wild sense of accomplishment even before the year started. Is that where we went wrong?

But to be fair, I won’t say that this year has been rough, I mean it has been, but it’s because I’ve been looking inwards, a little too much for my liking. Which is good, but maybe a little too much, you know? I’ve come to realise that everything that’s been said before about me, might be true and it has probably resulted in me being the way I am. Is it past experiences that have shaped me? Or the fact that I grew up in an environment that wasn’t always conducive to certain conversations? While I did have the openness for most conversations and supposed freedom that a lot my age, especially women were envious of (which I really did not make use of either, haha), it’s not to say that my childhood was not turbulent being witness to addiction, bankruptcy, arrests – the usual drill.

But this year has been a defining one nevertheless. The dynamic of many of my relationships and friendships have shifted, I would like to think for the better. I’ve lost some friends, become better friends with the ones who weren’t as close. I’ve learnt.to.slow.down. I started a full-time job that I’m still getting used to (the pandemic-curfew didn’t help set in motion this habit) and I now take weekends off. For the first time (in a long time?), I’ve been lonely, while actually alone and I don’t mean sexually. Just the genuine sense of loneliness one has when they want to talk to another with zero judgement and care. To have someone who would listen to you as opposed to giving you solutions to a problem they don’t fully understand.

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But then, that’s me. How are you now? Hasn’t this time being strange? I am genuinely blaming the lack of transition time we’ve had during this time. You know how we went from all is well to full-on militarised curfew and then back to whatever we have going on now. There was no in-between and I don’t know about you but while I’m all open for change, spontaneity is not in my list of favourite words. In fact, a transition that is non-gradual, stresses me out. Have you been drinking more as well? Is it just me who drinks the most on working days? Do you have that general feeling of angst and uncertainty creeping up your shoulder blades and working it’s way up to your head? Do you go to bed with a headache and wake up with one too? Do you go to bed at all or sleep peacefully?

Does life suddenly seem more purposeless than it was before and are you forever exhausted?

I don’t know if you resonate but if you do, please know that you are not alone. There are many who feel this way right now, many, including myself who are on what would seem like autopilot, taking one day at a time.

Hang in there. It has to get better. One of my good friends, Kevin, from my time in India used to tell me, “Once you’ve hit rock bottom, you have nowhere left to go but up.”