An Annual Comparison
By: Leanna Carl
Tags: 2019, 2020, Quarantine, Health, Year In Review

This is just going to be a case of me looking back over 2019 a little, as well as planning for 2020. It feels a little overdue but I also wanted to tap into how it’s been so far (which will probably have me talking a lot about the biggest current event :[) and what I’m hoping will change over the next few months.

Photo by Eric Rothermel on Unsplash

What went down in 2019

So, last year was full of debate for me. There was a lot of self-realisation and looking to improve on my own wellbeing, as well as a lot of career planning. This mainly came down to the fact that I had been working at the same company for the past 6 years, and I’d finally decided to call it a day. To be honest, this was mostly due to the fact that I was no longer getting a solid salary because the business was struggling, but I also realised I had to change things up and try to get out there a little more. If it wasn’t for the money problems though, I might have stuck around a lot longer, because I enjoyed it and I tend to get set in my ways sometimes.

That job was a great way of maintaining a comfortable lifestyle that allowed me to see my family often and was something that I felt I was good at, something I cared about and had dedicated a lot of time to — however, it didn’t leave a lot of room for future aspirations, particularly when it came to finances. So, sadly, things came to an end and I took the opportunity to have some ‘me’ time while exploring new options for an occupation. I worked on getting a little healthier and dabbling in my hobbies a lot more, because I’d struggled to make time before now, and I taught myself a few new skills too. Outside of work, health and fitness, I have also been working alongside my boyfriend to make our home more comfortable, more visually appealing and more suitable for our needs. I should add that Marie Kondo (KonMari) played a large part here as well!

Life unemployed

Having no current job, but some savings to live off of made it a little easier over the holidays, spending lots of time with the family and enjoying my free time — but time does fly. After a lot of fun and festivity, I assured myself that 2020 would be the ‘year of me’. The time of sitting comfortably and being careless would be over. This would be the year where I sort things out for myself in terms of: a good, stable career with a steady income, a healthier, more active lifestyle, saving for the holidays we have planned and the home we hope to have some day, and working on my outside of work skills and hobbies further. Of course I would still visit my family as much as possible, but I would also try to focus more on bettering my life as an individual.

To be honest, so far the job hunt has been rocky, but not hopeless. I’m feeling okay about it all, other than a mild sense of shame when people ask me how long I’ve been out of work now, but that’s not to say I didn’t need or deserve a break to think and recuperate — things happen anyway. In terms of my health currently, I still have some work to do (it is only March after all) but I’ve been to the doctors, the dentist and the opticians recently in order to get myself ship-shape, and I’ve gotten a little more serious about my workout regime/watching what I eat. I hope to keep this up, but I do feel like having a lot of time at home has allowed me to self-care more and avoid getting sick as much as I usually do — I don’t know if I could keep that up once I’m back on the horse. However, I will try my best!

Photo by Luke Chesser on Unsplash

Hiccups

Along this “year of me” journey (which is still in it’s early days) I have run into/foreseen a few issues with my plan. I have had a few setbacks in finding myself a salary due to an indecisive nature when it comes to choosing a field, and most job offers being a little too far outside of the area — or just plain slim-pickings when it comes to available vacancies. I have also on occasion missed out on opportunities due to being in the wrong location when interviewing. I haven’t travelled much this year, but I did spend a week back home with my family recently — receiving an email whilst I was literally on the train that asked me to come interview ‘that week’. I asked if there was any way we could reschedule for the following week or if they could get in touch with any unfilled positions at a later date, but they didn’t respond, and presumably moved on to the next candidate.

Other than that, there has been another very obvious hiccup to everyone’s plans this year — which is the pandemic we’re currently facing. Although I try not to give in to scare-mongering and I’ve tried to just use common sense to get by, hoping this is short lived, I am nervous about where the spread of the coronavirus is heading and how it’s affecting everyone. For one thing, despite all the jokes that are being made to lighten the mood and spread awareness through satire — people are dying as a result of the COVID-19 virus, which is heartbreaking. For another — people are beginning to show how selfish and irresponsible they can be when it comes to doing something about this. I understand that sometimes accidents happen, that people simply must make it to a certain location, or that sometimes people have a hard time believing in the facts (especially when they’re new or slightly more theorised) but I feel that if you are told that the best thing you can do is use proper hygiene and avoid travel/communal events where possible — that really shouldn’t be that difficult. For people to then start sweeping shelves in stores without a thought for anyone else, or selling the necessities at extortionate prices themselves; or jumping on a plane because the flights are now cheap is just despicable, and is one of the reasons this virus won’t likely be eradicated for a while.

Photo by Macau Photo Agency on Unsplash

Working through things

I am doing my best to avoid catching or spreading the coronavirus, hoping that it hasn’t even reached the areas in which my loved ones reside, but also hoping for the safety of everyone who is already at risk in other countries. It saddens me so much to see the numbers rising, especially knowing some people have done nothing to help the problem. I can’t do a lot to help the people I know in other parts of the country (nor can any of us really help the people we don’t know with this horrible issue), but for what I can do when it comes to basic hygiene, self-control when shopping and avoiding social situations, I hope that everyone else is able to do the same. I have in turn, sacrificed some of my plans, had events cancelled and don’t know when I’ll next visit my family. I’ve also found myself once again being a little less physically active. I only go out when I need to (and possibly take a walk in uninhabited locations with my hand sanitiser at the ready) so while I’m at home I have to try to workout as much as possible as a result of being too ‘indoorsy’.

As a bit of an introvert, and as someone who always has their cupboards fully stocked in general, to be honest, staying in more doesn’t worry me too much, but with my fingers crossed for job interviews and my desire to see my family again soon, as well as missing general events, it’s not ideal. My main concern though is that I just don’t want to catch it — I don’t know what my body is capable of other than getting colds quite a lot, I worry about my boyfriend who has mild asthma and once had pneumonia, I worry about any vulnerable person that happens to use the same door handle as me — I just worry. We don’t know enough for sure about the virus and how it’ll treat us, but so far it’s given more than enough causes for concern, and I just don’t want people to get sick. We’re supposed to be going to Japan this winter, which I actually shed tears of happiness about, and that we’ve already put money into — but it’s likely that won’t be happening now, and while that pains me and kind of shatters the excitement I had in my heart for the rest of the year — that is the very last of my worries right now. I just want this to be over.

2020 planning

I envisioned writing this blog last year, following up and future-planning, however I didn’t anticipate this unknowable situation to be going on right now, so all I can really say is that I sincerely hope plans can resume soon and that no more people have to die from this terrible virus. Originally this year involved an epic holiday in the wintertime, a trip to Liverpool for the Pokemon Go Safari event next month (unlikely to go ahead now), possibly trying to go to Germany again for the summer (not dead-set though) and I had a few upcoming gigs over the next month. We weren’t much looking forward to one of those gigs now, on account of the sickness-spreading, but it got postponed anyway. On top of that were my plans for general betterment, celebrating birthdays and helping my sister with a bedroom conversion. For now it’s all a case of wait and see…

I don’t see things calming down any time soon, but I can still hope for improvement. In a perfect world, for 2020 I’d hope that we’d all be so clued in now that the virus stops spreading any further, that people are cured all around the world of their current ailments and that any remnants of COVID-19 die out. Then we might resume what we were doing, returning to the plans we had and taking more sanitary procedures in general to prevent problems like this recurring in future. Sure, there is concern that it might be forgotten about soon enough and there would always be the risk of a return or a new threat someday, but that’s pretty much true of any day and at least now we might be a little wiser, and they may have even developed a vaccination by then.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Concluding

I honestly don’t know what will happen here on out, but if things do settle — I hope that we get to return to Japan and even if we can’t, I just hope that no one else has to suffer during this epidemic. In terms of my personal life , I hope that I somehow manage to luck out with a nice, fitting occupation (potentially allowing me to work remote when needed…) that also allows me to replenish some savings for trips around the world and for eventually settling into a new residence. I will continue to try to become more fit and healthy, I will work on my art more often in my spare time, I’ll try to become more fluent in Japanese (still learning!) and I will make time for my loved ones whenever I can. That’s all I’m really asking for of this year.