2020
Normally I keep a diary, but I don’t seem to have much of a record of 2020. I’m sure most people would agree that it was a hard year, a year quite different to other years. When I think back, what I remember mostly is sitting at my computer and looking at Microsoft Teams, either talking to my actual teams or chatting/typing in various channels or attending online meetings or events. I remember listening to the prime minister talking about national measures to control the spread of the novel coronavirus, listening to the state premier announcing lockdowns. Restrictions on the numbers of people allowed in places like libraries, schools, shops, restaurants. All sorts of problems… New acronyms and words: WFH, PPE, social distancing.
I remember feeling flat and exhausted and most of my work colleagues also saying they were tired too. And this feeling lasted months and months even through to 2021. Work seemed to just go on and on, and I recall talking to a colleague about not liking all the Working From Home, because it felt like I couldn't ever get away from work, and work was invading my haven.
I'm sure this contributed to how I ended up feeling about work: all the enjoyment just seemed to get leached out of my job. It started to feel pointless and meaningless to me and I remember being quite disturbed when I realised I had this feeling of dread every Sunday evening at the thought that I would have to go to work the next day. I had never had this feeling before! How lucky I was, to have worked for a few decades without having hated/dreaded going to work. And then when I did, it was just awful. Nothing I did seemed to shift the feeling. I thought about getting a new job, but moving to a new workplace and having to deal with new personalities and new problems just felt like a slog. Was it burnout? (Fast forward to 2026 and I've been retired since mid-2024... Might have to blog more about this later, get it all out of my system.)
Maybe it would have helped if I could have travelled and had breaks away, but of course there were too many restrictions and uncertainties for that. I don't think I read much in 2020, and when I did read I read mostly light novels to escape and take my mind off things. I don't think I've gone back to reading "serious" novels, really, and to this day I'm still mostly enjoying crime fiction and queer romance. The comedy series Schitts Creek and Ted Lasso also helped a lot.
What else? My most social hobbies, fountain pen collecting and painting, died in 2020. Sitting with groups of people at close quarters and talking about and looking at each others' pens/painting wasn't possible (or appealing). I still haven't restarted these hobbies and don't know if I will. Cutting down on social media has helped reduce my interest in acquiring new pens; these days I'm happy to just use the pens I've got.
I was also diagnosed with aortic stenosis in 2020. I might blog more about this too, but suffice it to say that having a relatively serious health issue diagnosed when there is a pandemic going on is not fun.
2020: what a year.