Normally I tell everyone who’s stuck in the past to let it go in order to move forward in the most positive way possible. I did believe that up until the middle of January, when all I aimed to do was look forward to 2020. A year of many positive changes was what the Chinese horoscope predicted, which often times do come with a price. In the year of the metal rat, I was destined to succeed in my career but was in line for a dozen failures – in relationship, health and my social life.

I tucked these predictions in the back of my mind, and took a trip to England in January seeing nothing but good in 2020. Until one afternoon, someone dear to me called from the U.S. to warn me about a deadly virus making its way from the east and to be very careful when travelling back to the states at the end of January. I took note, bought a hospital grade mask, surgical gloves-when the items were hardly a necessity nor available in stores, a travel-sized Purell and spend the night before my flight home praying that I make it home safe.

When I arrived at the airport, the driver laughed at me for putting on the mask before leaving the car – but I told him my concern and he insisted there was no way that virus would make it to Europe and that it would be contained sooner than later. On the plane I wiped down my seat, table, and anything that I would touch in my assigned space while the flight attendant watched my phobia in full action and I know from the way she smirked, she was probably relaying to me that they would be keeping an eye on me throughout the entire flight-for fear of being a nut job.

Same thinking was relayed with eye contact at the airport through the immigration lines, when I stood in queue among passengers who had just landed on a flight from China. But I paid no mind, and kept my mask and gloves on until curbside, when after wiping own my luggage, sprayed myself down with Lysol before getting inside the car of a family member picking me up. Crazy was everyone’s first reaction to my pessimism in a land where all things are often looked at with ‘rose color glasses’

As we all know, the news picked up and ran with stories about the virus, while the leaders fumbled about on how to keep order in their countries while enforcing rules and regulations to protect the people, without compromising their political interests or goals.

February I fell and broke my hand, which set me back from playing tennis, cooking, baking, and all other things I considered therapeutic for my weary mind. March someone I love miscarried. In April my dogs health began to deteriorate in the worst possible way, by May the full impact of the virus began to take its toll in our lifestyles, where the world together had to find the means to survive. Friends were tested positive, celebrities, government officials, leaders and the entire time I struggled with what you might call the 2020 depression.

June, when I thought I would be travelling through Europe in celebration of a milestone birthday, I ended up living in fear of this mad virus spreading all around us, and the leaders along with WHO, shifting gears every day on how the human race needed to behave in order to contain, or NOT spread the disease any more than it had already. I watched people lose it in grocery stores, in line for the essentials because someone was standing too close, or because another wasn’t wearing their mask properly, store police monitoring the amount of toilet paper we were allowed to buy and a bottle of rubbing alcohol was selling for five or six dollars. July and August, along with the BLM movement x 10, the California fires added to the lockdown…and by mid August my mother fell and broke her arm, then fell two weeks later, and bruised her tailbone, and then a month later, she fell again, and bruised her hip and since then I’ve been struggling to take care of her alone-all while watching my poor dog age in the worst possible way, and not being able to agree on the inevitable-the toll of tolerance building up to the point, it has surely damaged whatever relationship I had with a partner, family, and even friends. Never mind the political issues that have once again confirmed the wicked corruption running rampant in this country. Oh and yes, I did get promoted at work just as my horoscope predicted…

The question that begs to be answered…do I read what the Chinese horoscope for 2021 has in store?

I think not.

So along with the shared world events, and the ones we are suffering alone, please take a moment to reflect on the most positive of things that have happened this year also…a new awakening about the things in life we have taken for granted…family, religion, simpler moments, and the unconditional love of life.

I want to wish all of you happiness in your own definition for the coming year, and the strength to endure whatever life may throw your way…and do your best not to look back, as it will surely stop you from moving forward.

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