We made it! Semester one's over, we've reached the last month of the year, and what an utter whirlwind it's been.
If you'd told me this time last year about all of the shit that was about to go down, I'd have never believed it. It feels almost dystopian, the way we've been living. Something you could only ever watch on the big screen or read about in a novel. I remember when the rumour of the spread of a new virus was merely a talking point, back in February, just something that might come and go. Hard to believe now, right? I think so, having spent the better part of eight months sat at the same desk at which I find myself as I write this.
Now, I am all too aware that it doesn't all just, well, end, come 1st January 2021. We're very much still in this. I'm also all too aware of how lucky I have been in all of this up until now; I never lost a job, I never struggled financially, I had a home to go to when I was at my lowest at uni. Ultimately, it could have been so much worse. But you can't help but wonder what could have been, can you? The days I spent inside during those first few weeks of the first lockdown, telling myself to try a new hobby, get fit etc, I would have spent revising for my A-Levels (to be fair, I still would have been inside for this). It's weird to think that what was supposed to be the biggest, most life-altering year of my life was just that, but in a completely different way. The beginning of 2020 feels like another lifetime. Come March, a lot of important things in my life just...well, ended.
In all honesty, this second lockdown has been one hundred times more isolating than the first. Maybe it's the online, solitary learning of a completely new degree, or maybe it's the colder climate, but it's been kind of a lonely existence for the past month or so. I worry all the time that academically, I peaked last year, that the content just doesn't seem to stay in my head. I also worry that I've lost a lot of the confidence I gained before all of this; the lack of constant social interaction has definitely put me into a bit of a shell. I'm now so used to talking purely behind a text or even just a microphone, seminars leaving little opportunity to get to know other people. But I guess I shouldn't jump to any conclusions – after all, I did manage the first couple of months living in a brand new place on my own, after spending the previous six at home, in exactly the same predicament I find myself in now.
Anyway, that's enough of the deep stuff for now. In other news, I can't quite believe we've reached the middle of December! As shambolic as this year has been, it's still gone by incredibly fast. it really doesn't seem five minutes since last Christmas, just around the time when I was revising for mock exams and waiting for uni offers; what a different time. If I could go back, I would definitely tell myself to appreciate the time at college – I miss face-to-face learning! I have a completely new appreciation for the most mundane of things now. I also learnt I can get by on my own, even in a strange new place, in the most absurd circumstances I could have imagined. I can cook–ish. Turns out, whacking food in the oven at 200 degrees for 25 minutes works a treat.
Maybe I need to work on my culinary skills a bit.
Oh well.
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So that's that! Congratulations, 2020, on being the most shambolic, ridiculous, life-altering year we'll probably ever live through. Hopefully, hopefully, 2021 might not be as crazy, and maybe there's a light at the end of the tunnel? Maybe?
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