About a 100 days to 2021

 I maintained a diary during the lockdown. I always had a diary of course, but during lockdown I religiously wrote down an entry for each day. I think if enough newspapers and TV channels tell you that the event is unprecedented, it sinks into your head. That's become a 2020 word - unprecedented. We had oil prices going down because no one had place to store the barrels because ? Unprecedented. 

I thought it would be great to journal things as they happened for posterity. Sure, it is the age of chronicling every single second and every thought of every second online making this 'posterity' redundant but I considered my perspective on things something special and important to preserve too. 

So, when I say this, what do you think my journal was about? (I say was because if you write religiously for a month and a half it does get over)

It started as all our conversations did in March. Uncertainty. Fear. Anxiety. Clueless about what the fuck was happening. House cleaning tips. How business would be affected. 

Then came the second stage when you could see the real effects it started to have on those less privileged. The rest.. had Zoom meetings. Fitness goals. The 21 day challenges. Across the world were earthquakes and fires and massive protests. Gradually somewhere in between, my journal stopped paying so much attention the world. I did mention it was going on but I had adapted and my main concerns were well, me and my world. I think I did speak about it, right? Times start getting worse but we just start to adapt. It's both only natural and also scary. What does it tell about us to be able to shut out eyes at horrible things that have become normal?

Anyway, my main takeaway from 2020 is not how evolution science works. Or that we are heading towards apocalypse.

2020 is a year of great pause. This is the year when everybody else came down to my speed and we communicated more, even if we couldn't meet. Everything was slow and pleasant. I am sorry for romanticising this because I know it is a period of grave separation, loneliness and loss. It's just that times are changing again. With 100 days, I believe the world will just get up and go back, frustrated at 2020. Look at what's already happening - those of us who are not needy, are tired and clamouring to go back. So that's it. We will go back and lose each other to work and busy and who knows what. Not lose, exactly, just return to our default states of not thinking too much about other things. Because we are so resilient, I don't find it hard to believe that we'll do just that. Forget what we learnt here. What is a year in a whole lifetime after all?

That's what 2020 meant to me and what I'll remember of what. A brief year of talking to each other. :)

It feels strange to be articulating anything positive at all about this. To be the only person feeling something remotely resembling happiness about this.