2020: The Lost Year?

October 26, 2020

Of all the things we’ve lost in 2020, what have we found?

Definitely not our sanity. That’s for sure.

If you’re reading this, you’re likely done with unloading the dishwasher. You’d give anything to dine out properly without hand sanitizer. You can’t remember the last time you really hugged someone. At least not without the lingering fear of the potentially catastrophic consequences.

Is 2020 the lost year?

Maybe so. But let’s not revisit the immeasurable loss.

Even though the year is not over yet, what if we considered what we’ve gained — those things we’ve learned during quarantine? Perhaps these past few months have offered us fresh perspectives to look at those things we may have otherwise passed over in the hustle and bustle of our pre-pandemic lives.

Here’s my short-list of things we’ve found during quarantine. I’m curious to know what made your list.

1. New cooking skills
Nope, my fiancé Pete has still not. cooked. one. meal. (yet) during quarantine. ‘Why cook when you’re so good at it,’ he tells me. That’s nice. If you’re reading this Pete, I have a whole website of recipes. That aside, if neither one of us knew how to cook, we would have had to eventually head to the kitchen and make something work. Whether you’d like to admit it or not, quarantine has made you a better cook. At the very least, it has challenged you to look at your kitchen differently. To my friend who keeps her sweaters in the stove of her New York City apartment, I’m sure by now they’ve found a home on a shelf in the closet where they belong.

2. A healthier outlook on the important things
The founder and CEO of the company I work for told me in the beginning of the pandemic how ‘self-important’ he felt before COVID-19, flying across the country for glamorous business dinners at some of the city’s trendiest restaurants. ‘And for what?’ he mused over Zoom. He was right. Especially living in New York, where whoever-works-the-hardest-wins is not only a warped mentality but an even more unsustainable lifestyle, it was easy to get caught up in the frenzy of it all. And for what? As much as I loved racing to the subway in heels for a Midtown meeting and spending late nights in bed with my laptop in my 20s, I question if maybe we all were a little too ‘wound about the spokes,’ as my dad says. I do miss this frenzy, though. New York, I’m looking at you.

3. Our relationships, unmasked
In the absence of being in large groups, we’ve turned to our closest inner circle for comfort and camaraderie. If we’ve learned anything about quarantine, there’s nothing more important than the company you keep. Whether it’s your spouse, your roommate, your cat, or yourself, we’ve become more attune to those we surround ourselves with. We’re cautious to remove our masks among those not in our quarantine comfort zone. You may look at those you’ve quarantined with in a new lens. Maybe you’ve seen them work, pitching sales decks over Zoom and then stepping away for lunch hour, just as they would at the office. Quarantine has unknowingly forced you to look at your partner, or whomever, differently, for better or for worse.

4. Celebrating the ordinary
This isn’t necessarily on my list — I’m the duchess of celebrating the ordinary, mundane moments — but I wanted to put it on here for you. I wanted to continue to encourage you to make the most out of your daily routine. It is, after all, our daily routines that define our lives. Vacations and special occasions only happen so often.

And while they’re great, we should not be living for those moments, so much as we should be living in those moments leading up to them.

So with only a few remaining months left in the year, let’s flip the script. When we look back on 2020, let’s make it the year we looked at the bigger picture; looked more closely at those things that matter most to us. This year has unexpectedly hovered a magnifying glass over the everyday particles of our lives.

And in spite of the incalculable loss, we’re unknowingly gaining, growing, and learning just as we have always done. We’re still making progress in quarantine, even if it doesn’t feel like it.

We’re still hopefully united in the belief that things can and will get better. Because they have to. We’ve just been challenged to seek out and find that perspective. My hope is that you’ve found it, otherwise 2020 will be a total loss.