Is it still March? Is time still real? Every time someone brings up 2020, it feels like trying to remember what you did on a bad weekend in Las Vegas. Technically, a lot of shit happened. But it was so fucking ridiculous, you literally wiped it from your mind. Fortunately, since this was a traumatically shared experience, we can Google it.
Turns out, 2020 kicked off with bushfires in Australia that killed or devastatingly hurt 60,000 koalas and burned 47 million acres. And then nine months later, a wildfire on the west coast of America grew into a megafire and then a gigafire (wtf lol) and turned the sky apocalypse red. Also, Brexit, Megxit, crop-destroying locust swarms, World War 3 trended, toilet paper shortages (note: plural), murder hornets, TikTok almost got banned (several times), borders closed, everything was cake, Quibi, Ebola, UFOs, peaceful protesters were beat up and teargassed by the police, Kobe Bryant, Chadwick Boseman, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, John Lewis, and a fucking pandemic took 1.9 million lives. It’s hard to believe but it’s what this listicle on Mashable says—so it’s gotta be true. Bleh.
Everyone’s saying this was the year from hell. Gonna say that again. The. Year. From. Hell. Yeah. Because we were absolutely helpless. Paralyzed. Hopelessly unprepared. Sitting ducks. The only choice we had was to inside with our stress pimples in three-week old sweats and watch. Even though none of these events were a surprise—well, except for the murder hornets and Quibi (wut even)—the fact that we couldn’t give them the attention they deserved because they were coming for us at the same time turned a bad situation into a waking nightmare. Remember in school when you’d look at your exam schedule and feel terrified but still in control because you knew when each one of them was happening? And you’d do your best to prepare. You probably wouldn’t even scratch top ten but you would go for the attempt and give it your best shot. Well, 2020 was like showing up to school and being told that due to unforeseen circumstances, every one of your exams had been moved up, and would be taking place that day, back to back, and you hadn’t even taken the plastic wrap off your textbooks. Fuuuuuuuck.
Imagine a parallel universe where we knew everything was going to drop in the same year? We probably still wouldn’t have been able to develop a vaccine but we’d have made a valiant effort. The takeout industry would have knocked it out of the park. And the post office would have gotten their shit together. Absolutely no one would have been mad about receiving an endless stream of socks for Christmas. We definitely would have traded spin classes for cooking classes and figured out how to enjoy our own company so we wouldn’t implode if no one texted us for a few hours. Cuffing season wouldn’t have been a joke. Investing in a desk and chair would have been a thing and our beds would have safely avoided becoming an all-in-one couch, workstation, dining table. Oh, and the career choices we would have made. Wedding photographer? Nope. Flight attendant? Hard pass. DJ/Bartender/Event Promoter? Are you out of your mind?
But then again, that’s not really how pandemics work. So fuck 2020.
