2020 Year in Review: The Apocalypse Decade

Normally in these yearly reflection pieces, I look back at the highlights and lowlights of trips I’ve taken, reliving happy memories and celebrating things I’ve checked off the bucket list, but seeing as the world as we knew it completely turned upside down and I went on a whopping three flights this year, like everything else, the year-end review is going to look a little different than years past.

So settle in with a big glass of whatever you’ve got left in the pantry, throw on your finest work from home sweat pants (business up top, party down below) and let’s reflect on quite possibly the strangest time in history in a year that truly felt like a decade.

Everyone knows what happened, but for the sake of argument years later (I like to think anthropologists and sociologists may find my blog one day and use it as a hot take on American frivolity. Narcissistic? Maybe, but stranger things have happened).

So we were going about our business, on a major high looking forward to the new decade, thinking we were all going to be living our best lives when barely two months in, something unfathomable happened. A mysterious Contagion-style virus from China spreads across the world at warp speed forcing the entire world to shut down.

No one had any idea how to stop the spread with different countries, cities, and states all adopting different rules and protocols, some more effective and restrictive than others. Alternating between shock, frustration, anger, and the disbelief of having our freedom relinquished as Americans, we thought we’d have to tough it out for a few days, but that turned into weeks, and ultimately became months in waves of severity with no end in sight. The virus threatened to cancel holidays and upend major milestones from weddings to Christmas.

Between travel bans, restaurant and bar capacities limited or forbidden, work from home mandates, and everything but “essential” businesses shuttered, life as we knew it came to a screeching halt. Major festivals and global events were canceled, sports tournaments were postponed, canceled, or reimagined, massive games were played to empty stadiums with no fans, and gatherings were limited to only a handful of people in your “bubble.” Pretty much all travel and plans were paused indefinitely as we were left scratching our heads as to how this possibly could have happened in this day and age.

Quarantinis, covidiots, shelter in place, zoom, and chin diapers became common speak and inside jokes, terms unfathomable before a year where toilet paper and hand sanitizer became the hottest black-market commodities. Socially distanced events became all the rage as a way to pretend like things were halfway normal from 6 feet apart. The mental toll of mandatory isolation was damning as people felt more solitary and distant than ever.

In the blink of an eye, Dan and I went from saving money by shacking up in my little 750 square foot apartment for one month until we moved to Arizona to being stuck on top of each other for six months learning just how loud and annoying the neighbors truly were. Around us 24/7 on lockdown, it basically exacerbated every annoyance and qualm I had with overcrowded Denver. After a decade in the Rocky Mountain state, I just needed a change and to shake things up. We had planned on moving to Phoenix because it was the cheapest West Coast city where I already had an established circle of friends, but the timing never felt right, and it was never a place that really spoke to me. And then all plans went out the window.

So I did what any flighty millennial would do. I moved to Texas, a place I had mercilessly made fun of, and adamantly stated would be the last place I’d ever live. And not just anywhere in Texas, but the Gulf Coast. The extreme of the extreme. Because when a full-time position becomes available with your favorite client in the middle of a global pandemic while everyone else is losing their jobs and burning through savings, it seemed like a good time to have health insurance and a little more of a safety net. Plus, I never planned on freelancing full-time; it just worked out. Truthfully, I’m pretty happy not to have to hustle as much; it was exhausting and frustrating to watch an empire you’ve built up for years crumble in the blink of an eye due to no fault of your own.

The best part? Everyone followed me here, partially because it’s so much cheaper, partially because it’s so open (we’ll get to that later), but like Denver, Texas is having a major moment, hence all the hushed whispers about a purple wave and Houston on the verge of overtaking Chicago as the third-largest city in America. Yup, ya’ll know I’m a trendsetter.

So that’s where we’re at. I’ve been here six months now, and keep asking me if I like it. I diplomatically give them the answer that there are positives and negatives about everywhere, but really the answer is I don’t know.

No matter where I could’ve been based, the biggest change for me was going from traveling virtually full-time to feeling grounded. Moving anywhere in the middle of a pandemic would be weird, but even more so for the extremes of how different the places handle it — going from a state that was completely locked down with 1k fines for not wearing masks to a place that barely acknowledges anything is going on.

While Texas is about as open as it can be, it’s hard to get a real sense of what things are like under normal circumstances. People are still leery about one another, so we haven’t really gotten to meet people or make too many friends outside of work, and I don’t feel like we’ve been able to give it a fair shot just yet. But if you’re curious, here’s a bit more about where my head’s at.

I like/love:

I love our big, cozy house with plenty of room for dog #2 and had so much fun decorating. I love that it was cheaper than my condo in Denver, that we have room to spread out and breathe, and that everything is open (having lived through both extremes, the numbers are high either way, so selfishly, I like being able to do things with no questions asked). I like going to the beach Friday afternoons to therapeutically watch the waves (I never thought I’d live by the ocean), and a snow-free winter.

I like little things about living in a small town like not having to make a nail appointment, being able to walk into any restaurant without a wait, having neighbors watch your packages instead of stealing them, bringing you banana bread to welcome you to the block, and offering to check in on the dog and mean it. I like that I’m already bumping into people I know and recognizing faces at the grocery store.

And then the bigger things. People we’d only known a week made sure we had somewhere to go during the hurricane, texting to check in on us, and instantly made us feel like part of the community.

But ultimately, I love the opportunity. This area is a blank slate. They’re totally open to new ideas and essentially giving me a blueprint to build my dream city from scratch.

Things that are different:

Hanging out with people of all ages (hanging out with friend’s moms is weirdly not weird), reverse high season, hiding out in the AC all summer, and melting until Halloween. Seventy degrees feeling freezing, decorating for the holidays in said 70-degree weather.

Things I miss but am sort of getting used to:

Being less than an hour and a half from a big city and airport, being able to walk places or take public transit (even UBERs aren’t super common), having new restaurants to try all the time.

Things I don’t like:

The mosquitos and other creepy crawlies (I affectionately call Texas the Australia of America), the PTSD of hurricane season, religion intertwined in daily life, sayings like have a blessed day and Jesus music playing in mainstream stores, racially charged words like coon (which I recently learned is a Cajun phrase, not derogatory slur) casually thrown around, extreme political views being spouted off and shouted from the front lawn (believe whatever you want but keep your opinions to yourself), how gun happy everyone is, and the constant barrage of negativity.

Aside from a handful of driven, superhumans who have devoted their lives to making the town better, most civilians have a weirdly self-deprecating relationship with the area. People are constantly telling us how horrible it is here and why would we ever leave beautiful Colorado, which, quite frankly, is exhausting. They always claim there’s nothing to do, but I spout of dozens of attractions they’ve never heard of and never given a chance. And when you try to bring something cool and new to the area, it’s resist, resist, resist change is bad.

Does the good outweigh the bad? It’s about even right now, the medium place if you’ve seen the show the Good Place (which you should because it’s amazing). At the end of the day, nowhere’s perfect. I loved Colorado but had plenty of issues with Denver. And Chicago, well, let’s just say the Windy City and Chiraq were well-deserved nicknames. So, we’re sticking it out for a bit, finding our footing and making the best of it. I’m a big believer in timing and signs and truly believe we were brought down here for a reason.

And after all is said and done, the highlights of the year were still those travel opportunities, albeit few and far between. Nothing otherworldly or lifechanging, but memory makers and something to look forward to, nonetheless. A road trip with my sissy to St. Louis. Omaha before this all started, redeeming Nebraska slightly, the excitement of going back to Colorado, and visiting my family in Chicago after not seeing them for almost a year.

As drive destinations and “exploring your own backyard” became all the rage (and let’s face it, really the only option), we did a few road trips to explore the area and had some fun seeing Hot Springs, Arkansas, Galveston, Austin on our evac-ucation, and learning Houston, but most ended in frustration with many attractions I wanted to do closed due to you know what.

So here we are on the brink of a vaccine, another outbreak from a mutation, numbers higher than ever, and a whole lot of uncertainty going into 2021. Everyone is breathing a sigh of relief that this hell year is over, but I don’t think January is going to be the magical switch they’re hoping for.

We both have jobs and are healthy, so we’re doing about as well as we possibly could be given the circumstances. Settle in and brace for a long winter, friends, and cheers if you have some semblance of sanity left. Personally, I can’t wait for the movie version to come out.