My last blog post was back in August when I told you all that I moved into my very first apartment. To be honest, I wasn’t too pressed to come up with something because I haven’t had the motivation to come up with anything for you all to read until now. I’m learning to give myself some grace during this crazy a** time.
Anywho, as the year comes to a close, I compelled myself to give a 2020 reflection of how my year went. If I were to come up with a fancy phrase for this year, it would have to come from Beyonce’s Sweet Dreams. “You could be a sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare. Either way I, don’t want to wake up from you.” This year has had many great things come my way, yet it came with a few bad things too. To prevent this blog from being a thesis paper, I’ll begin by only naming a few great things that happened to me this year.
Sweet Dreams
The first thing would be my birthday, whom I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with. I’m a winter baby living in the Midwest and working as a teacher, so there are limited places to go during that time. I’ve always had unfortunate events happen around my birthday, which made me feel like it was jinxed. As a result, I wanted to treat my birthday as a regular day and focus on daily tasks. At the same time, I always had the urge to try and celebrate regardless of the circumstances. This is the reason why I began my journey of coming up with goals. I was tired of my love-hate relationship for my birthday, so I made an effort to enjoy it all month long and give myself goals to accomplish throughout the year. The leap year made it even better 😉 To prevent me from making this longer than it needs to, I’ll just say that I had an awesome birthday. It also included my first conference with my soul sister.
The second thing that happened this year was passing the Resident Educator Summative Assessment (RESA). For those who aren’t aware of the term, this determines whether a third-year educator can continue teaching in their state. To pass this assessment meant so much more than not worrying about whether my career in education would continue. To pass this assessment meant facing my decade-long fear of taking standardized tests. I always felt like I was never good enough to pass the test. I empathize with my students who take state tests each year. (Sidebar: The fact that students didn’t have to take a state test the last school year was the best decision ever. I hope that they don’t have to take it this year as well.)
The third thing that happened this year was moving out and living on my own. Even when I was living on a college campus, I was living with someone. For me to be living by myself is a big deal. I made this decision on my own. It’s an adjustment for sure, and I’m always learning something new.
The fourth thing that happened this year was a reminder. God does listen to me. He always has been listening to me. God allowed things to happen in my life because He heard my prayers, both verbal and non-verbal. Every. Single. One. Even the ones from years ago, it felt like God answered them this year. I will be forever indebted and thankful for God. At this point, no one can tell me that God does not listen to prayers. Try if you must, but you will not succeed! Tuh!
Beautiful Nightmares
Yep, many many great things happened for me this year, which I would consider my sweet dreams. On the other hand, there were some beautiful nightmares. (No, I’m not talking about the Pandemic because that’s just down-right a nightmare.)
The Black Lives Matter movement I would consider a beautiful nightmare. Why? Well, it hurts to see that we’re still in this battle of showing the world that equality is for black people too. Unfortunately, it’s irritating to see that there wasn’t much progress in our efforts back in May. The beautiful thing is that some people were able to see what we black people go through, even though they don’t experience it themselves. Not only was this a national thing, but people from across the globe were watching.
Moreover, my anxiety has been at an all-time high since this Pandemic began. Doing my normal tasks of going to work, church, the store, etc. has been daunting. I even had a few anxiety attacks. There have been times where I have been giving myself pep talks in my head. “Keep going, girl.” “You’re doing a great job.” “You’re okay.” “You’re going to be okay.” “I’m so proud of you.” Honestly, I’ve never had so many mental battles in my entire life. I’ve literally been doing things scared. Nevertheless, I continue to do my daily tasks because I refuse to allow this Pandemic to get the best of me. I’m thankful to God that I’ve won my battles even though I haven’t won the war just yet.
Do I have any expectations for 2021? Nope! Well, okay, I do have a few.
My hope is for us to all have better lives next year. I don’t expect us to go back to normal because it’s old news at this point. I want us to create a new norm that is tailor-made for each of us. I hope to see more people pay attention to what teachers go through daily. I hope to see more people show up for the yearly elections that involve their city and not just a presidential election. I hope to see more people log onto a virtual church (because who can ignore the growth spurt of people tuning in online).
As for me, I am turning 30 in 2021. Yep, THIRTY! This was my last year in my twenty’s. I learned a lot, cried a lot, prayed a lot, lost some things, and gained more. Most of all, I never lost my mind!
I have a few goals in mind and I have written them down, but I don’t want to create 30 goals and not get through the whole list. I want to create them as I go through the year. Here are a few of those goals:
- Learn how to bake bread.
- Finish reading books I’ve started.
- Finish crochet projects I’ve started.
- Learn how to straighten my natural hair. (Aht aht, don’t judge me. I am excited and nervous about doing this, so keep me in your prayers.)
Well, 2020, you have been an ultimate pain in the butt, but you also have created some beautiful moments this year. I’ll never forget you.
