Well, that was 2020 I suppose
2020 was not very nice. I think that’s fairly uncontroversial.
This is a post about the handful of things that happened in 2020 that were actually quite nice.
But let’s get this out of the way: mostly 2020 sucked, globally and personally.
We postponed the wedding, had months under lockdown, my mental health is in tatters and I've spent half the year basically one bit of bad news away from an anxiety episode, my dad nearly died and still might, I'm fatter than I've ever been since my teenage eating disorder, my job is both stressful and precarious because the government decided to destroy the economy two ways at once, and that government continues to be the worst in living memory.
Oh, sure, other people have had it far worse, and that would be an interesting and remotely useful observation if misery were a finite and fungible lump. But we don't live in a land of zero-sum despair. You having a bad day only makes my day better if you voted for Brexit. And even then not much. I’m not a total monster.
I shouldn’t wallow: I’ve got it pretty good really, and a sense of proportion is healthy. But we’re all entitled to our feelings.
In the spirit of maintaining some vague shred of that healthy perspective, here are some things that happened in 2020 that weren't entirely wretched:
Getting off my arse and starting to run
Never would’ve thought I could do 5k, much less in 27 mins and falling.Painting Warhammer minis. It’s really soothing
There’s a whole post about that.Hitting a significant work goal, despite all the chaos
A whole bunch of other work stuff has gone well this year, despite April being fully hellish, a redundancy round, and a deeply unpredictable outlook. I’m so proud of the teams I work with and what we’ve delivered this year.Getting to see Madonna do Vogue (and Frozen, and Like a Prayer) live, as part of the Madame X tour was pretty amazing
Joe Biden won the US election
He’s technically a Democrat.
The four-year nightmare of Donald Trump’s presidency ends in the most 2020 way imaginable.Baking croissants for the first time and not fucking it up
We chose wedding rings
The ceremony may be postponed, but we picked out rings on a trip down to Brighton. It’s where we had some of our first dates, and we’ll always love it. A wonderful weekend.Trying out a new development methodology at work, Basecamp’s “Shape Up”
Funny thing for an annual highlight, but apparently I’m a career guy now? Anyway, it’s brilliant, I love it as a way of working. Might write about it at some point.Reading some fantastic books
I read 32 books in 2020. That used to be low for me, but is pretty good for the last couple of years. I’d particularly recommend: Gideon the Ninth (Tamsyn Muir), The Rest of Us Just Live Here (Patrick Ness), The Black Flamingo (Dean Atta), Spoon-fed (Tim Spector).Amsterdam in January
Cold as balls, but lovely. We went for a friend’s birthday, and it was great to front-load the year with some actual good times with my chosen family.Dungeons & Dragons
A friend was kind enough to run a short campaign and it was just delightful. Try it!There’s a vaccine
Several, in fact. And even though they’ll take forever to roll out and I’m sure the government will find some way to botch it, this gives us both a vital source of hope and a phenomenal scientific achievement to celebrate.
That’s all maybe not a lot, but it’s definitely not nothing.
There are countless ways that 2021 could be worse, but there are enough little flickers of positivity that I’m allowing myself a little hope. Just a little. Can’t have me getting all optimistic on you now, can we. There’s a brand to maintain.