We all know what kind of year we've had collectively. I'm not here to set fire to the farewell to 2020, because there's enough of that going on. Here's what my year has done for me, personally, because I've had a much stranger year than I expected and ended up with a handful of surprising achievements.
✓ Processed a surreal amount of trauma
I made it through both a trauma that I had not addressed since childhood and traumas that I've been actively processing since they finished up with my university degree. My therapy sessions have been jam packed. My psychologist, psychiatrist and GP have done an amazing job guiding me through things that I couldn't imagine navigating on my own.
I willingly faced a lot of personal demons this year. It's been the culmination of so many different bits of working on myself.
I do feel the need to clarify that I'm not "healed" or anything like that, but it's progress to be able to talk and tackle things without feeling like it's a personal Armageddon. 2020 has seen me close a very long, 9 year chapter of my life and traumas and it's really refreshing to be able to actually look forward to a future where those things aren't lurking in my mind anymore.
✓ Posted at least 1 blog post each month
This was a relatively small goal that ended up being an incredibly difficult one to keep in a year where time didn't exist. Having a nonlinear sense of time ended up helping this year, though it was weird to watch people suddenly experience time in a way that I had been mildly feeling the whole time. Habits that I've learned over the years really kept me in check, and transferring the energy I used to keep other people's content on schedule to my own stuff is something I'll be doing more of in the future.
I still managed, sometimes barely, to keep to this minimum I set myself up for last year. If I can do this in 2020, I can do this pretty much in another other year right?
✓ Moved out (again)
Originally I had planned to move out at the end of the year, but with lockdown affecting the rental market to the degree that it did I couldn't really pass up the well lined up timing. I moved out 6 months earlier than expected and I adore my apartment, even with its age and flaws and the lack of a flyscreen anywhere.
The first time I moved out of home, I was 18 and not financially independent, so to do it again with my own finances as an adult has felt very different. I'm happy here.
✓ Career focus change
Being let go at my client side, corporate job surprisingly lined up with a career choice that I was weighing up at the time, even if it was a Covid-19 thing. A friend of mine congratulated me when I told her I was let go and it was a moment that has stuck out for me this year. The choice was made easier for me by being made by someone else.
I love what I do, and I'm good at what I do. I had forgotten that fact over time, with corporate process and inertia. Being made redundant let me kick my own ass back into gear and while I'm not in the best financial spot right now (who is? It's 2020) I'm happier and more motivated than ever to pursue my own interests.
As for what it is that I do, describing it as content creator is occasionally too confusing for folk, so the best and simplest way I've explained it so far is that I make cool things to encourage clicks of some sort on a technical end, but really what it all comes down to is finding the best way to tell stories. In the past it felt like a bit of wanky self promotion when I explained that I was a storyteller at heart, but with each passing year I feel like it really is the core of what I do, both professionally and personally.
Maybe given another 5 years I can put Professional Storyteller on my LinkedIn. Hell, I may as well just do that now and see what happens, right? What's the worst that can happen?
It's been a hard year. I've been very fortunate to not hit rock bottom in any of the various ways that it could have happened. I've learned an incredible amount of things about myself and the people around me this year, and hopefully 2021 will be chaotic enough for us to leave the useless pre-pandemic things we ditched during the pandemic (like hot desking) but with enough structure for our collective mental health to recover.
I'm thankful for all the moments I've gotten through to get to this point, and oddly enough I'm looking forward to the near future. It's been a very weird year, and I'll see you in the next.
Thanks for sticking around,
Annie
