Happy New Year!

Oh my days, what an absolutely mental year 2020 was! There’s so much to talk about, and yet it was probably the most uneventful year for many people on a personal level. For many people in the UK, time was spent teaching their school’s curriculum to the kids, accidentally muting Zoom meetings and clapping on the doorstep every Thursday evening. 

2020 wasn’t all doom and gloom.

We missed out on travel plans, weddings, gigs, theatre shows, sporting events and every other conceivable event we’d penned in on our 2020 calendars. It wasn’t all doom and gloom though – a surprising number of good things came out of 2020 too. 

Marcus Rashford tirelessly campaigned for free school meals, and succeeded. Captain Sir Tom Moore, a war veteran raised over £38.9 million for the NHS. Trump was voted out of the White House and Kamala Harris became the first female, first black, and first South-Asian Vice President Elect. The Black Lives Matter movement highlighted the abundance of modern day racism and taught us valuable lessons on how to be categorically antiracist.

Environmentally, the lockdown restrictions imposed on us all allowed for a decrease in air pollution, among other things. Although these environmental changes may be temporary, it has at least paved the way for us to clearly see the impact our social and economic activities have on the world, and therefore, hopefully a way to slow down the environmental disaster. 

All this begs the question, what will 2021 bring?

COVID-19 is far from over, in fact it seems to be at an all time high and each day I hear even more personal stories from those who have either had it, been affected by it, or lost a loved one to it. It would be completely foolish to think that this year everything will ‘go back to normal’ – in my opinion, anyway. Coronavirus still exists in 2021 and I, perhaps pessimistically, don’t think that we will ‘eradicate’ it for quite some time. However, scientists have been working hard to produce vaccines and the roll out of these has already begun, so who knows what will happen. 

On a personal level, 2021 is a big year for me.

I’ve been waiting for Big Ben to hit midnight on December 31st since April 2019. 2021 is the year that I finally get married! I have a lot of planning still to do and quite a lot of shopping, so you can expect a lot of wedding content from me this year.

We can’t forget the honeymoon.

I am so excited about our honeymoon which is booked for November. I am a little nervous about travelling during the COVID 19 pandemic and whether that will affect the wedding and the honeymoon, but that’s something that only time will tell. I think taking out insurance is something that we are going to look into before the end of the month. 

At some point, I’m meant to be seeing McFLY live.

Originally my sister and I were going to see McFLY in early 2020. Due to the ‘rona, that all got postponed. The new date was some time in October, but…you guessed it, COVID-19 put a stop to that! We actually haven’t heard anything further about when the new dates will be announced or if the tour will even still continue. I really hope it does and they’re one of my favourite bands and it’s such a fun nostalgia trip to go on with my sister! 

Going to my friend’s wedding.

My friend was meant to get married in November last year, but obviously that then got cancelled. Actually, it got moved around a lot, shrunk and reorganised all before it got cancelled completely. I felt so bad for her and I can’t even imagine how stressful it was last year for anyone planning a big event! I’m looking forward to the day she finally gets to have her happy ever after!

I’ve got to start taking care of myself.

I’m not one for New Year Resolutions – I much prefer to call them my New Year Goals. That makes it sound less like a strict list of things I must do, and more like targets to work towards in my own time. This year I have a few small goals that I want to focus on. They’re all floating around in my head right now as I haven’t managed to quite whittle them down to coherent sentences. I do know, however, that a big focus of this year will be about taking care of myself. I’m not necessarily talking about bubble baths and face masks, but about loving myself, becoming more confident, ditching the toxic people and taking charge of my own happiness. 

Whatever 2021 brings, let’s be hopeful and compassionate.

Some have a strong belief that our new vaccines will take effect and things will return to ‘normal’ sooner, rather than later; others are more sceptical. Whichever camp you fall into, let’s all just remember that our community spirit, kindness, generosity, and compassion got us through one of the toughest years of our life. We can take whatever 2021 brings and we will do so together.