2020
By: Guillermo Barreiro
Tags: Reflections, 2020, Covid 19, Quarantine, Beyourself

At home, since my sister and I were little, we have the tradition of writing a letter to Santa and the Three Wise Kings (the latter more traditional in Spain than the former) telling them how good the year has been and all the gifts we would love to receive. This is quite usual, sure, but what is not is to be adults and keep doing it. I’ve just finished writing mine, and while last year I was expressing how glad I felt with all the good things that had happened to me along 2019, this year’s letter has been completely the opposite.

It’s December, Christmas is coming, the city becomes so beautiful with the lights, and people go here and there to buy gifts. But I couldn’t feel less illusion about it. This Christmas I won’t be able to get together with my whole family, as we used to. I won’t have the yearly dinner with my former school mates, as we used to. No walking through crowded city center streets, no New Year's Eve party, no day trip to a nearby city, no happy people around; briefly, nothing to celebrate.

2020 has taken away my freedom and all the happiness and illusion for my upcoming future that I had been harvesting during 2019. Enjoying my last months at university with people I haven’t seen since March and that probably I won’t see them all together anymore, my graduation party, some exciting trips I had planned, my dream of starting a career abroad. Instead, it brought me a 50 days quarantine (in Spain we were not allowed even to have a stroll alone), followed by a continuous state of fear that has drained most of my mental strength.

« 2020 brought me a 50 days quarantine, followed by a continuous state of fear that has drained most of my mental strength. »

By far, the worst moment of 2020 was the March and April quarantine. However, looking back to those days, despite all the anxiety of being locked down in a flat in the city, I think we all hoped the situation would improve soon and we would be able to come back to our normal lives as if nothing had happened. So naive, wasn’t it? I remember going to the balcony every day at 20h, joining my neighbors, my city, and my country in a national clap, followed by a song I played with my speakers, and then screaming some hope words.

Then we started to partially recover our lives, and have a quite nice summer. But when autumn came, restrictions did too, becoming tougher every day. It’s been “only” nine months, but I feel so tired, and despite having right now much more freedoms than in March and the vaccines coming to Europe in the following days, I feel less enthusiastic than before. I don’t believe either in those empty words like “we’ll become stronger” or “this will make us better”. For my generation, this has been the first “tough” thing in life. Many of us didn’t know what war or a dictatorship was, so we weren’t prepared for something like this (this crisis can be seen as a war against a virus and the lack of liberties as a dictatorship) and never expected to live it in the first person. This shouldn’t have happened, but it did, and whenever it’s over, it will be a collective trauma that we will probably bury in our minds.

« This shouldn’t have happened, but it did, and whenever it’s over, it will be a collective trauma that we will probably bury in our minds. »

However, it would be unfair not to write about all the good things that I did in 2020 and that despite what I have written until now, has given a purpose to this year, making me feel very fulfilled. First of all, in January, after coming from my semester abroad, I joined in my town the local section of a European students association which helps exchange students coming to the city. I met there a lot of foreign students with whom I had so much fun until the pandemic came, and above all, I met some local volunteers who are now really good friends, and it’s strange to think that one year ago that people who are so present now in my day to day didn’t exist in my life.

I’ve also learned to play the guitar that I was given last Christmas, and I think it’s so cool to have learned to play my first instrument on my own. I’m just an amateur, but it’s awesome to see how in January I didn’t even know how to hold a guitar, while now in December I’m able to sing and play a lot of my favorite songs. It’s also fascinating to think of how my brain has grown by learning to play an instrument. Besides all, this hobby helped me to make my lockdown days easier and to relax after a working or studying journey.

I’ve finished my degree in Telecommunications Engineering, and even though I didn’t have the so awaited graduation party neither I could start a career abroad as I pretended, it’s such a big milestone. I’ve always been passionate about IT, so studying for this degree was probably my destiny, but it’s also one of the most demanded fields of work nowadays, especially with the pandemic, so I couldn’t be more confident about the shiny professional future that is awaiting me.

During the spare time I’m having this 2020 locked down at home (or with nothing better to do outside) I’ve read some fascinating books which have made me reflect a lot and grow as a person. Two of those were incredibly mind-blowing and made a special impact on me: Ensaio Sobre a cegueira (Blindness), by Portuguese Nobel prize winner José Saramago, and 1984, the famous dystopia by George Orwell. I’ve also started writing, not only here in Medium, but also in the traditional way, with pen and paper, which might be the seed of my first book.

Despite I couldn’t travel anywhere this summer, I enjoyed the warm and sunny weather on the beaches of my hometown (I’m so lucky to live next to the sea) and I’ve shared memorable moments with my friends. After the summer, I started working as an R&D Data Engineer at university, so I feel very lucky in this sense since a lot of people are losing their jobs due to the pandemic. Last, but not least, until now, I’ve been very lucky not to have mourned the death due to COVID of any relative or friend.

But I won’t lie, I miss my pre-pandemic life so much. I miss partying, traveling, watching soccer live, festivals, daylife, and nightlife in streets full of happy people, the freedom of doing what you want, the lack of fear of what’s going to happen. I’m 22, and the lifestyle I’ve had in 2020 has been very far from the life I’m supposed to have. Despite the torturing thoughts I had in the first months about what I would be doing this year if this hadn’t happened are gone, some days I have the feeling that the best moment of my life is being stolen, and I won’t be able to recover it.

« I’m 22, and the lifestyle I’ve had in 2020 has been very far from the life I’m supposed to have. »

Despite all, I have to be glad also for all the unforgettable experiences that life gave me in 2019, and I have to keep optimistic and think about all the great years that are still to come. 2020 is ending and we finally start to see the end of this nightmare with the imminent beginning of the vaccination campaign across the world. I’m very tired, like probably most of the people who are reading this, but I’m sure that the freedom and happiness that 2020 took us away will come soon, and whenever they do, we’ll appreciate them as we never did, because we’ll have learned how valuable and fragile those things that we took for granted are and which was the most valuable asset we held: our freedom.

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