Best of 2020 | End-of-Year Survey

Happy last Monday of 2020! We almost made it through this crazy year, and it’s time for my most favorite blog series: best of the year! While it feels almost sacrilegious to say “Best of 2020” at all, alas, that is the name of my blog series and I’m going to try my best to find some bright spots in this weird year. To start, it’s my annual end-of-year survey. I found this survey years ago on a now-defunct blog and it’s one of my favorite ways to reflect on the year. Enjoy!

1) What did you do in 2020 that you’ve never done before? 

• Ran a mud race
• Lived through a global pandemic
• Was a poll worker in the general election
• Went kayaking

2) Did anyone close to you give birth? Two of my cousins gave birth in February and April of this year. 🙂 A sweet baby girl and an adorable baby boy!

3) Did anyone close to you die? No, and I know how lucky I am to say that this year.

4) What places did you visit? Nada. I didn’t travel at all in 2020. (Thanks, pandemic!)

5) What would you like to have in 2021 that you didn’t have in 2020? More connection. It was a hard year to stay connected and I don’t think I did a great job of reaching out to friends and staying in touch with family. I’d really like to work on that in 2021.

6) What dates from 2020 will be etched in your memory forever? Probably December 11th, which is the day my friend texted me to say, “She has a tumor,” in reference to her baby. I’ll never forget that day or how it felt to have my world bottom out with this news.

7) What was your biggest achievement this year? Living through COVID-19. This wasn’t a year for achieving—it was a year where life as we know it altered drastically and just maintaining our sanity through the isolation and fear and misinformation, while doing everything we can to stay healthy and keep others around us healthy, is enough.

But if I had to pick out an achievement from 2020 that’s not COVID-related, I’d say that reading 150 books was a pretty big deal!

8) What was your biggest failure? I wish I could have finished my novel! But that was not to be. I’m not sure if I would list it as a failure, though. It just didn’t end up being one of my priorities this year. And that’s okay!

9) Did you suffer from illness or injury? Nope. I was healthy all year long (not even a cold!), and I am so very grateful for that.

10) What was the best thing you bought? Gosh, probably my desk! I bought a small desk in April after realizing I’d be working from home for a long time, and then upgraded to a fancy, bigger desk in September after my move. It’s perfect for my needs and has two great spots for the cats to sleep. 😉

11) Where did most of your money go? FOOD. I spent so much money on groceries and UberEats orders. It was my coping strategy this year.

12) What did you get really, really excited about? Moving! I was so damn excited to move from my tiny, studio-esque apartment and into something bigger and more updated. I am so in love with my new place. It’s the best!

13) What authors did you discover in 2020? Alisha Rai, Barbara Kingsolver, Kiley Reid, Lisa Genova, Leah Johnson, James McBride, and Olivia Dade to name a few! I read a lot of great debuts and novels from big-name authors whose works I’d never read before.

14) What do you wish you had done more of? I wish I had reached out to friends more, which is exactly what I said last year. Then again, I didn’t know what awaited me in 2020. But I think I would have been a lot happier if I had done a better job at maintaining my friendships. I don’t feel like I was a very good friend this year, but I’m also trying to give myself a lot of grace here because: global pandemic.

15) What do you wish you had done less of? Emotional eating. I haven’t stepped on a scale in the past six months, but I know I’ve gained a good amount of weight this year. It was not the year of healthy living for me, and I engaged in some pretty bad eating habits. But again, trying to give myself a ton of grace here. This was a hard, hard year and we all just did the best we could.

16) How did you spend Christmas? I spent the morning at home, puttering around and getting ready for the day. Around 11:30, I left for my mom’s. We had Christmas dinner around 1 and then opened presents. I got all of the things I really wanted, including a new set of pots and pans, a popcorn popper, a rug for my patio, and a bullet journal kit.

I left my mom’s around 4 and it took three trips for me to bring everything up to my apartment! Whew. Then I proceeded to take a really lovely nap, waking up a little before 7. I spent the evening unpacking all of my gifts, washing all of my new pots and pans, and opening gifts with the girls. I also finished a book and took a nice, long bubble bath. It was a lovely day!

17) What was your favorite TV program? The Baby-Sitter’s Club on Netflix! This light-hearted, supremely enjoyable series came out over the summer and it was exactly the bright spot I needed. If you haven’t watched it yet, I highly encourage you to give it a try. It’s an incredible adaptation of this most beloved book series.

18) What did you want and get? Well, I wanted the experience of working from home more and I surely got that! I started working from home full-time in mid-March and it was so successful for our company that we’re going to be working remotely for good! They have downgraded our office to a smaller space that will function more as a co-working office. I have thrived in a remote work setting! I love not having a commute, spending all day with my kitties, wearing loungewear 24/7, and having a much more flexible schedule.

I also wanted to move to a new, bigger apartment and I got that as well!

19) What did you want and not get? I didn’t find love in 2020, and that was something that was really on my heart at the end of 2019. I wanted to fall in love this year and even made a goal of going on 24 first dates! I was already behind on my goal when COVID happened. When we were under a stay-at-home order, I just wasn’t in the right headspace to even think about dating. And later, I didn’t feel comfortable going on dates with strangers. (Nothing says romance like, “Please show me the results of your most recent COVID test.”) 2020 was just not the year for dating, and I’ve made my peace with that.

20) What was your favorite film of 2020? You guys, I don’t think I watched a single new movie in 2020! Okay, actually I did, but it was a movie from the 80s, haha. The only “new” movie I watched this year was When Harry Met Sally, which I watched with a friend during our annual Galentine’s Day date. I thoroughly enjoyed it so I could definitely say it was a favorite.

21) What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I turned 33 this year and had a really special day! I started my day with a massage and then met up with my mom for pedicures. We went shopping at this adorable, local Christmas shop and then picked up Chick-Fil-A for lunch. I helped my mom and stepdad pick out a Christmas tree, too! Later on, I went out for a fancy dinner with my mom, my brother, and my stepdad and opened presents from them. It was such a great birthday!

22) What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Not having to deal with a pandemic? I mean, duh. I could have traveled and seen friends as usual. Maybe I would have found love even.

But I also wanted to contemplate my answer to this question, even in the midst of living through COVID-19. Is there anything that would have made this pandemic year more satisfying? And the truth is, I don’t think so. While 2020 was a hard year in a lot of ways, it wasn’t necessarily a bad year for me. I am insanely lucky that my company has allowed us to work from home since March and that my job wasn’t affected at all due to the pandemic. I did not get COVID this year, nor do I know anyone close to me who had a severe case or died from it. (I have spent a lot of time this year wondering how my grandparents would have handled this pandemic. Pops would have hated all of the restrictions, I know that much. He was very much a social person, and it would have been really hard for us to keep him from going places, especially church.) My mental health stayed relatively stable, I was able to move to a beautiful apartment, and my finances improved dramatically this year. I feel icky even typing these sentences, knowing how privileged I am to have escaped 2020 relatively unscathed, but I can’t deny my own experience, either.

23) Who kept you sane? My mom—we had daily FaceTime chats at the beginning of the pandemic that have now evolved to FaceTiming multiple times throughout the day. We rarely text anymore, ha. We just Facetime each other when we have something to say!

I also had a daily Marco Polo chat with M. that kept me going throughout this year. These videos felt like a safe space to talk about my day and some of the things I was thinking about. It’s nice to be able to talk for as long as I want, knowing I won’t get interrupted.

24) Who did you miss? My friends. We haven’t had a book club meeting since February and only got together throughout the year for birthday surprises, and I really miss seeing them on a regular basis.

25) Who was the best new person you met? I didn’t meet any new people IRL but have connected with some lovely bloggers this year, and that has been a delight for me.

26) Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2020. People are inherently good. It’s been really heartwarming to watch people show up for my friend, M., her husband, and baby Olive as they go through one of the most difficult things a family can go through—pediatric cancer. She’s received so many gifts and donations and support. M. is always blown away when a complete stranger wants to help (“But you don’t even know us!”), and it has reminded me that people are inherently good. This situation is so incredibly shitty, but I am grateful that M. and her family aren’t going through this alone, and Olive has an entire army behind her.

27) Show us one of your favorite photos from the year. I am so, so glad we were able to sneak in our book club photoshoot before lockdown. Actually, when we had our photoshoot, we had no idea that our world would change drastically in just a few short weeks. There are so many incredible photos from this photoshoot, but I especially love this one of us. I can’t imagine doing life without these amazing ladies!