Well, we made it! The very end of this crazy year.
First and foremost, I think it’s important to recognize that those of us that still have our jobs, a place to live, and our health intact: we are incredibly lucky indeed. The suffering of so many who have lost employment, and the unspeakable death toll here in America (one in 1,000 Americans have perished due to COVID-19) is a stark reminder of the utter privilege we have. The privilege of not only surviving through this year of the pandemic intact, but perhaps coming out ahead ever stronger.
How easily it could have turned out the other way. Be thankful, and give a hand to those in need.
So I’m not going to bemoan the fact all my travel plans in 2020 have been unceremoniously cancelled. I should be somewhere back home in China right now taking in the local sights. Instead, I am writing this at home in San Francisco, once again stuck inside of a lockdown situation. Many good plans have been forsaken this year, and we’ve all gotten immensely familiar with our homes, unable to go anywhere (shouldn’t, anyways).
And to think, I was right near the genesis of the coronavirus. Way back in January, I was in my hometown of Guangzhou as usual on vacation. News of the COVID-19 outbreak was already percolating out of Wuhan, though at the time it was only news in western media. The Chinese was still suppressing the information locally. The evening news in Guangzhou didn’t mention the bubbling crisis at all. If it weren’t for twitter, I wouldn’t have known about coronavirus until I’d taken the return flight in Hong Kong.
Never in my wildest predictions did I think that this viral incident from Wuhan would come to consume the entire globe. For a while, it seemed we would be okay here in America. We didn’t effectively lock down until the middle of March. Until then it was business as usual here in the States, even as we learned of devasting news coming out of Italy. Daily death tolls in the hundreds that seemed horrible at the time, but mundane compared to the now thousands that are dying in this country every single day.
Returning home from Guangzhou, I was more concentrated on picking up the pieces from a relatively dreadful 2019. I had a rather significant bout with anxiety towards the latter half of 2019. The annual trip back to China was suppose to the be a cleansing reboot of my personal operating system, coinciding nicely with the ringing in of a new year. The trip was successful for that purpose, and by the end of January I was on the mend, looking forward to a better 2020.
A realignment of the department at work (I am tech support at a university, for those who don’t know) threw a bit of wrench into that. It’s difficult to allay anxiety levels when such a major component of my everyday life is in so fluid a situation. Essentially, I got move to a brand-new role, and for the first time in nearly a decade I would be learning a completely new skill-set. Under normal circumstances this would be a tremendous opportunity for growth. However, the departmental realignment was so abrupt that there wasn’t enough time to assimilate myself to a new team. I was stuck in limbo, having to do some of my old responsibilities for the time being, while waiting for guidance on what’s ahead.
It would have had to wait until the Summer months to begin to sort everything out. Of course, COVID-19 abruptly entered the conversation in March. Americans joined the party as the coronavirus began to ravage our continent. New York City was the first hard-hit area, with hospitals running out of beds, and corpses needing refrigeration trucks to haul to the cemetery. It was only a matter of time before the spread comes to other parts of the country. Each region then had the choice: be proactive, or keep the proverbial head in the sand.
I am tremendously grateful the San Francisco Bay Area took charge and began shutting down well before COVID hit our area. Much kudos to the tech industry for telling its workers to stay home starting as early as February. Our university stopped in-person instruction on the 9th of March, a date I’ll remember for a long time to come. All classes were going remote, utilizing the piece of software we’ve come to know and begrudgingly love: Zoom.
The once bustling campus turned into a ghost town over the course of a week. San Francisco enacted a stay-at-home order soon after. The euphoria of getting to be at home and not have to physically go to work quickly turned into stress. I was still unfamiliar with in a new team, and now I’m thrusted – along with my colleagues – into this completely strange new instruction method. How to provide support remotely when none of us have really done it? How can I properly participate when I don’t yet know much of anything pertinent to the tasks?
For much of Spring, I would be supremely anxious each morning to open up the web portal to work. I was scared of my own incompetence, of not being able to contribute, and looking like a fool (hello, ego). What if someone asks me a question that I don’t have the slightest answer to? I got thrown into the deep end of the pool without yet learned how to properly swim.
Paradoxically, there’s no better time to rapidly learn and adapt. To make mistakes and the adjust as I go along. The situation caused by the coronavirus gave me permission to simply go and run with it. So what if I don’t know something? I’d do the best I can to find the information and then provide a solution for the customer. Being kind to others and wanting to help was my guiding principle in how I approached the work. It’s okay to make mistakes so long as the heart is in the right place.
It would be too easy to disappear under the cloak of remote work and leave the tasks to others, feigning an ignorance of knowledge. I’m glad I didn’t, because 2020 have been the biggest year of professional growth for a very long time. Sad that it took a global pandemic to make that happen.
I am incredibly lucky to have the shoulder of a giant to stand upon. A coworker of mine on the same team became a mentor of sorts and really helped me through this period. He patiently answers all my (what must sound to him) stupid questions with tremendous detail and clarity. I could not have been nearly as effective in remotely assisting faculty without his guidance and support. It’s a generosity that I hope to pay forward in the future.
Working from home is not without benefits, primarily the lack of commuting. Early in the year I was still taking the bus to and from work, and the nearly two hours lost each day was something I was looking to decrease dramatically. The long commute on public transport was a great contributor to my elevated anxiety levels last year. The stress of having to slog it back home in a crowded bus after a particularly tough day was huge, no matter how many informative podcasts I was able to consume along the way.
Driving would have easily cut the commute time in half, but there was a problem. In 2019 I took the “you only live once” mantra to the extreme and bought a Porsche 911 GT3. It’s a type of car that I was not comfortable with parking it on the streets in our working-class neighborhood. Therefore, the car was stored at the work garage instead, only taken out for drives on the weekends. To be able to drive to work, I’d have get a second car. A financially unfeasible ask, given the amount of money I was already paying to have the GT3 around.
The other solution was to (finally) move out of my parents’ place, to a spot of my own. Somewhere far closer to the work than the other side of the city. The ideal place would be somewhere close enough to be able to walk to work. But this option had the same problem: the bloody Porsche. If it was already monetarily unfeasible to get a second car, then moving out and renting would be nearly suicidal. I could have made it work, but at that point I would truly be “car poor”.
Even so, I had thoughts and plans of moving out in 2020. Bottom line: how much would you be willing to pay for less stress?
Obviously, COVID-19 kind of altered those plans. Working at home means no commute! I didn’t even have to get dressed. All things considered, not needing to physically go in to work decreased my stress levels quite dramatically. It was wonderful to reclaim those two hours of the day, to use as I please. I vowed to never commute by bus again. When the time comes and we are able to return to campus, I would either get a car to commute with, or move closer to campus.
Even though we are still in the midst of remote instruction and work, I’ve been physically going to campus on and off since the end of May. Some stuff you simply cannot do remotely, and I volunteered to go to campus when the time came to do that work. In the name of safety, I was being chauffeured on the days I needed to go to campus. It’s a burden that I loathed to heap upon my family. It did not sit well with me to ask my dad to come pick me up from work after a typically long and arduous day for him.
Per chance, this year a good friend of mine moved to a house that is only a 10-minute walk from campus. The house happens to have a studio unit available for rent. A perfect storm of compatibility – it’s easier to rent from a friend than a complete stranger – allowed me to move out on my own at the beginning of November. A wish fulfilled: no more slogging commute to and from work.
But I did not commit financial suicide to do it. A year of zero travel have reaffirmed my affinity and love for traveling. Adding rental cost on top of payments for the GT3 would prevent me from doing so comfortably in the future. The car had to go. As much as I don’t want to admit it, the enormous expense to purchase and run the Porsche was a huge albatross. I don’t regret buying the car, but it was time to move on. To support the move out of the house, I sold the 911 for something a bit for sensible to the wallet: a BMW M2 Competition.
The weight of the Porsche off my shoulders is really freeing, something I didn’t know would happen until I signed over the pink slip. Selling the GT3 would have been beneficial even if I had stayed living with my parents.
With the coronavirus very much still ongoing, perhaps it’s the wrong year to add the financial burden of renting. Indeed, it would have been more prudent to wait until the vaccine is properly disseminated and things return to normal. While I am fortunate to have kept my job throughout this pandemic, the future is not guaranteed. The smartest thing would be to stick it out at home for longer and build up the war-chest.
Ultimately though, the timing felt right in my gut to make the move. I turned 33 just some weeks ago, and it’s way pass due (by American standards) to start living on my own and take care of myself completely. The milk isn’t going to replenish itself when it gets low. My parents are also of that age where they’d rather sleep apart in separate beds. With me vacating my room, they can now do so comfortably.
Having move to a far quieter neighborhood further decreased my stress levels. Where we are located it’s practically a subdivision, so the amount of vehicle traffic is low. There’s also a distinct lack of noisy neighbors playing loud music into the night; I can sleep soundly without needing earplugs. As someone who loves silence and tranquility, moving to this new place is worth every single dollar.
Even a card-carrying introvert like me can say I was struggling with the constant stay-at-home order towards the end of Summer. By then the pandemic was assured to stretch on for the rest of 2020. I’d no idea how much I would miss sitting down at a restaurant and breaking bread with friends. The movie-going experience is completely gone. I couldn’t go out on drives with fellow enthusiasts because who wants to be the jackass in the Porsche screaming up and down a mountain road? Even visiting friends carries a calculated risk, one that we seldom took.
I’m used to and love the introverted, homebody lifestyle. I just very much want the rest of you to go back to your regular, extroverted life. One that I can sometimes participate in when I so choose. Like the BTS concert that was supposed to happen in May.
To keep some modicum of social engagement, our group of friends had weekly virtual Zoom meetings. We’d talk about how things are going (same), and then play some online multiplayer games. During the Summer when the cases went down and places began to open back up, we stopped meeting regularly. Sadly, things made a U-turn heading into Fall. Once lockdown 2.0 happened, we returned to our scheduled Zoom chats.
We even managed to have a socially-distanced Friendsgiving.
During other times, I have to say it wasn’t too difficult to keep sane during this pandemic. Long-standing habits I’ve had since way before COVID-19 continued on nonstop: write on the blog, read books, exercise, and study Korean. Aside from the periodic travel, my life pre-pandemic was fairly Groundhog Day-like already. I didn’t have time to stew on the fact that we’re stuck in our homes due to a highly contagious virus with no end in sight. I had stuff to do, so I continued to do them. The lockdown simply provided more time.
I didn’t keep count, but I like to think I’ve read more books this year than in previous. I did quite a bit on Zen Buddhist philosophy, the study of which greatly helped with my struggles with anxiety. Alan Watt’s The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety, Michael Singer’s The Untethered Soul, D.T. Suzuki’s An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, and Paramhansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi are some of the highlights.
Overall, I have to say it’s been a great year, personally speaking. I found solid footing at work, and had tremendous growth in skill. I finally moved out of my parents’, beginning a new stage of adulthood. In selling the 911 GT3, I got rid of a stressful money pit. Combined with saving up diligently during much of the year (couldn’t spend it on travel/going out), I’m once again back on good financial standing.
A combination of those things, plus the continued study of philosophy, I was able to lower my anxiety and achieve mental equilibrium.
Did I mention our family got a pet kitten? What a bundle of joy he is.
More importantly, my family and immediate circle of friends remain healthy and gainfully employed. In a year as turbulent as 2020, that’s is all that we can ask for. For so many, this has been the worse year imaginable. Empathetic as I am, their situation is out of my control. I will continue to work on myself, be better and improve day by day. I will help others whenever possible, in whatever capacity.
My only great hope heading towards 2021 is for the world to get back to normal as soon as possible. And that those who have lost plenty will be able to regain what’s been missed.
The wisdom I take from 2020 is this: the time we have is precious.
Top 10 songs of 2020
1. Shaun - Way Back Home
2. Twice - More & More
3. H.I.N.P (Hot Issue of Ntl. Producers) - Rumor
4. Changmo - Meteor
5. ITZY - Not Shy
6. IZ*ONE - 환상동화 (Secret Story of the Swan)
7. 방탄소년단 (BTS) - ON
8. Red Velvet - IRENE & SEULGI - 놀이 (Naughty) (Demicat Remix)
9. Zico - 아무노래 (Any song)
10. 여자친구 (GFRIEND) - MAGO