2020 changed my worldview. When I spent my pre-teen years lost in the worlds of apocalypse movies, I never for a second imagined I would experience anything remotely close to that.
What. An. Idiot.
2020 was meant to be a new beginning for me. New school, new friends. But it turned out more like “new month, new show to binge.” The news was depressing, I hadn’t seen my friends in forever and being cooped up with my family wasn’t exactly my idea of a dream. Each month of this wretched year brought with it a dystopian terror so I found increasingly unhealthy ways to cope. The classes I had picked started getting away from me. The conversations with the people I cherished the most had almost completely disappeared. I barely spoke more than five words to my family each day. We weren’t even halfway through the year and I was already the least productive I’d ever been – and this is coming from a chronic procrastinator.
I felt hopeless, like I had no value. The world was proving Murphy’s Law over and over again so why even try? And it’s not like I could complain – millions of people are dying and I can’t get myself together to do homework? Surely that’s not acceptable. To make things worse, I saw people around me excelling at everything they put their mind to. People who I should’ve been happy for, but in my miserable state all I could focus on was how I had become such a waste of space.
By the time summer rolled around I was quite content to live out the rest of my useless days in my room (or ‘my cave’ as mum puts it) when one morning, I was dragged out of bed for a road trip. Although shocked by the uncharacteristic bonding session suggested by my impassive family, I had no choice but to go along. I did have a choice to sulk though. A choice I absolutely took advantage of…until I couldn’t anymore. I was genuinely enjoying myself for possibly the first time that year. I found out that my dad wanted to renew our father-daughter movie nights, my mother found it upsetting when I didn’t talk to her for days and the longest conversation my brother had that whole year was when arguing with me about who the best Spider-man is.
2020 changed my entire world view. And it changed the way I view myself. Some people led peaceful protests, others led insurrections. Some looted toilet paper, others baked banana bread. And I…napped a lot. And I slacked off on assignments. And I finished assignments. And I cried. And I laughed. And I made others laugh. Safe to say I haven’t changed the world monumentally in the last year but to have thought I had no impact at all was a grave mistake. You may not realize the effect you have on the world but it’s better to keep going than to give up and rid yourself of the valuable moments you could have had.
Sarah Loulaj – Reposted from youthof2020stories on Instagram, a humansof2020 initiative
Did you know humansof2020.com is a self-publishing platform? The stories are not curated and open to everyone to share their experience. Join the community and post your experience today.
English