2020 in Review

Well, 2020 has been a sack of shit, hasn’t it? I’m sure I’m not the only one who can’t wait to see the back of this utter ballsack of a year – and reading back through my 2019 review, pretty much everything I mentioned in my ‘hopes for 2020’ section got cancelled…but you know, 2020. 

Despite that, there have been a small handful of positives that have come with the shitshow that’s been this year. While 2020 was the year my mental health took a downturn thanks to the little bitch that’s coronavirus, and it was the year that my hands essentially turned to stumps from where I was washing my hands so much, it certainly brought with it a few silver linings for definite. I was quite dubious as to whether I should write a 2020 review, but I thought for a change it would be nice to put together a post on the good things that happened in 2020. Before we crack on, I’d like to just answer that question that’s burning on all of your lips – yes, Taylor Swift and Normal People are featured in this post.

We Got to the Bottom of Things

Soz guys, this is a bit of a crude way to kick off this post, but I feel I should start where 2020 began. I kicked off the early portion of 2020 by having a rather large tube shoved up my butt in a bid to put to rest the endless stomach problems I’d been having. It was one of the most ridiculously stressful experiences, and by the time I trotted into that operating theatre, I was convinced I was dying. However, on top of weeks of anxiety and stress followed by 2 days of starving myself and taking a hefty amount of laxatives, we had the results. After all of that waiting, all of the side effects that Moviprep brought me…I had IBS. Yep, all of that to tell me what the fuck I knew in the first place. Despite all of that, I’m so grateful – I’m grateful for the fact that I got seen before the full on lockdown hit, and I’m grateful that I was so well looked after. Above that though, I’m grateful that it was just IBS. Yes, I’m annoyed I went through all of that to just confirm something that’s been said for years, but compared to what my brain was thinking, it’s incredibly good news.

Lockdown Birthday

Like many this year, I spent my birthday in the peak of lockdown. Surprisingly though, it was probably one of the best ones I’ve had. You may think that’s offensive towards other birthdays I’ve had, but let me explain. The fact that we were stuck in lockdown meant that every single smidge of pressure had been removed. Normally, you’ve got the pressure of having to do something fun on your birthday – going out for the day, going out for dinner and so on, but thanks to Covid, that pressure was removed entirely. I had expectations of the day being meh at best, and it really wasn’t. Liam worked incredibly hard to make it a wonderful day, even to the point of putting a party hat on Tilly (not that she was impressed).

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I had socially distanced doorstep visits from Lillie, my Mum and my Mother in Law, all of which meant the world and really cheered me up, I had a beautiful cake delivery from my sister in law, and the evening was topped off by a Zoom call involving my Mum and Daisy, my brother and sister in law and their partners, and my father in law, who’d arranged the whole thing. It was just a wonderful day and I felt so lucky to have these amazing people for my friends and fam. I was so emotional it got to the point where I ended up crying at the Virgin Media advert.

Normal People

Yes, we all knew this was going to feature in this post. Can you blame me?! To be honest, the first time I watched it, I didn’t expect it to become such an obsession. My bad. I didn’t know that it would become my biggest obsession since I discovered Frasier at age 13. Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal were absolutely incredible as Marianne and Connell, and the entire show in general was just perfection.

My obsession with Normal People also meant I developed a cheeky little secondary obsession – and that was with Paul Mescal. Let’s just say, he made the top spot on my list (my Ross Gellar laminated wallet list). After much deliberation, it got me to start off my new series – Crazy Lady Watches Normal People – yes, really. In all honesty, I’m still not over this obsession. Thankfully though, I received both the DVD and the book of the scripts for Christmas, so I’m all set.

Beach Trip

Once the (first) lockdown measures started to ease, it meant a chance to get out and enjoy ourselves again in a socially distanced way. One of my favourite trips without a doubt had to be a beach trip that I had with Cheryl, Lillie and James. We drove down to Weston-Super-Mare for the day and had a picnic on the beach, along with loads of laughs in the process. It was such a fantastic day and it was probably one of the first moments of the year where things actually felt normal. I honestly hadn’t laughed that much in months, and it was so well needed.

Taylor Swift Saved 2020

My tiny little mind exploded earlier this year when Taylor Swift announced that she was releasing Folklore. It was an incredible masterpiece of an album and it provided some incredible escapism on the shit-show that was 2020. It was the soundtrack that accompanied my moving house related panic attacks and my repetitive drives to the new house, and for that, I will always remember Folklore. Then, without any warning, Taylor announced she was releasing Evermore, the sister record to Folklore. Fuck me. Just when you thought she couldn’t get any better, she goes and releases a record like Evermore. As things were starting to go further down the shitter, she made things just a smidge better with Evermore. During the days I spent doom-scrolling through social media, this was the album that gave me an hour of escapism. For those reasons, both Folklore and Evermore will stand-out as two of my favourite albums of all time. My Tay-Tay Top Five for Evermore will be out soon!

We Bought a House!

Undoubtedly one of the key moments of 2020 was that we bought a house! Following on from some major dramz in early 2019, we eventually got things moving again in March. However, lockdown then happened and put the whole thing in jeopardy. Thankfully, things began to pick up as the first lockdown measures started to ease, and we eventually moved in in August – it was a ridiculously stressful couple of weeks but we’re certainly at the other side of it now and we’re all settled in our new place at long last. There’s still a fair few bits that need sorting, but we’re getting there.

What’s Happening in 2021?

Well, thanks to Covid, pretty much all of the  events and shows we had planned for the year were postponed until 2021 – Michael Bublé, Joel Dommett, Russell Howard, the lot. So, provided things start getting better (at this moment, I can’t see it happening any time soon unfortunately), we’ll have a fair few shows to attend. Many of my readers will know that we often book quite a few comedy shows throughout the year, but for obvious reasons, we’ve held off for 2021. Not only were we concerned things would be postponed again, but we also knew we’d have quite a backlog of stuff from 2020 too. Despite that however, two more shows have been added to the agenda – all going well, in May I’ll be going with Stacey, my sister-in-law, to see the live show of Help I Sexted My Boss with Jordan North and William Hanson, and in December, Mama J and I will be off to see Steps. Again, all going well. I think at the moment it would be a wee bit pointless getting my hopes up. While we all need something to look forward to, it’ll hurt even more if you build your hopes up too much. Typical pessimistic view on life of course, but fuck me, this year has removed pretty much any ounce of positivity I had left.

At the moment, it’s hard to imagine everything going ahead in 2021, especially the stuff for the earlier half of the year, but we’ll see. People just need to stop being dicks and breaking the rules, and our absolute fucking joke of a government need to get their priorities sorted among other things. Without getting too political, I can’t see how reopening the schools in January is going to be beneficial for anyone. Ugh. I don’t know what to make of it anymore. Just, can everyone please be sensible and think of others so we can get out of this shitty pandemic sooner rather than later? Kthxbye.

Okay, I didn’t want to end on such a negative note. All in all, I’m grateful that I’ve still managed to have the positive experiences I did in 2020 – at the time the pandemic first happened, I experienced what can only be described as a drunken breakdown convinced I would lose my job and we’d subsequently lose the house we just agreed to buy. I feel very lucky to have moved into our house when we did, and I am so, so grateful for that. I think the one lesson we should all take with us from this piece of shit year is that we shouldn’t take things for granted. Even if it’s something as small as popping in to see your friend for a cuppa. Stay safe everyone and here’s to a much less shitty 2021.

What were your 2020 highlights? Let me know in the comments!

Featured image by Amy Shamblen on Unsplash.