Things I Learned in 2020
Despite 2020 being almost two weeks ago, you might ask me: Why am I still writing about the godforsaken horrible year that we are all trying to move on from? To be honest, I’m not entirely sure. Yes, we can all agree that 2020 was a shitty year for ALL of us. But for me personally, I had gone through so much self-growth in the previous year, more so than all the other years preceding 2020. Before we forget about the uneventfully eventful year, I decided to write down the things that I felt I had to write down, just in case my future self needs to re-read this for motivation. Here are the things I learned in 2020:
1. Trust the universe.
I had to make you uncomfortable, otherwise you would have never moved. — The Universe
One day as I was scrolling through Instagram, I came across this quote that resonated with me more than I knew. Being a control freak like me, often times I find it hard to let myself dive into the unknown and trust that whatever is higher than me knows what it is doing. But 2020 was the year that I realized that I could never be in complete control of everything. I had zero control of the pandemic and therefore, could only do what the universe guided me to do; which was to go home, where I would end up in for half the year.
At the start of the lockdown, I had broken up with my boyfriend of two years, and even though exposing this is somewhat odd and awkward, I realize that there is nothing wrong with being honest and vulnerable. In fact, there’s not much left of ourselves that we haven’t already exposed to the internet, right? Anyways, I was heartbroken and I had no choice but to embrace whatever it was I was feeling. I had to confront my emotions in order to move past them. And for a second I didn’t understand why I decided to end the comfortable relationship, but in the back of my head (and heart), I listened to that tiny voice telling me that it wasn’t meant to work out. Fast forward a few months post-breakup, I started to understand why the universe never let me go on with that relationship.
Right as I was about to celebrate Christmas and New Years, the two holidays that would signify the end of the horrid year, I found out that my parents tested positive for Covid-19. At this time, I had just returned back to Jakarta to be home with family for the holidays, and I was absolutely crushed. There was nothing I could do. I came home only to quarantine myself in the house for more than 2 weeks. Feeling out of control, I would wake up and go to bed feeling anxious, and would feel like crying at random times of the day. The fact that I couldn’t see my family and friends, or even go out to get coffee was draining my mental health. My holiday ended up being cut short as I was unable to actually spend time with my parents during Christmas and New Years. My point is: I beat myself up for this when there was really no reason to. Why did I beat myself up for something that I couldn’t do much about? The only thing I could do was try to be there for my parents and hope for their recovery, which I did. I then realized that we are all so used to getting things our way that when shit happens, we freak out and get depressed.
Throughout the year I also gained some weight. You can fight me on this, but sometimes weight gain is not something that we can control. And in previous years, the thought of gaining weight would depress me so much that I would sometimes skip meals or punish myself for eating. And what I realized was this; as I was freaking out over gaining 3kgs, PEOPLE WERE DYING OF HUNGER. I should be really fucking grateful that I have a body, instead of terrorizing myself so much for something that is natural and normal. Sometimes things happen just because they can, and in 2020, I learned that it is OK to surrender to whatever is happening and just live through it, one day at a time.
2. Give yourself a break.
If you know me, you will somehow know that I am an exercise freak. My passions include art, literature, food, and working out. Even during the lockdown, I worked out EVERYDAY and made no excuses for myself. It didn’t matter the time of day, where I was, what I was doing or who I was with, I felt the need to workout on a daily basis. Little did I know that all the intense workouts left me with injuries and sleep deprivation. I was so into working out that I had forgotten to let my body (both physically and mentally) rest.
After the multiple injuries and fatigue, I was forced to let my body rest, and I didn’t know how much I needed it. During school-term I would go to the gym after school even though I was tired, and during the weekends I would still wake up early just so I could go to the gym before it started to get crowded in the afternoon. I had no breaks, even during my monthly cycles. And my body was tired. So I decided to take weeks off from working out to chill out and let my body breathe, relax, and grow. It was during this time that I reflected on why I pushed myself so hard, and started to question if I was doing this for myself, or for other people’s approvals. Was I working out so hard to feel good about myself? Or was I doing it because I wanted the body that people considered beautiful? I always thought I knew what “listening to your body” meant, but all this time I was listening to that voice telling me that I’m fat.
3. Your mental health costs more than the high-end shoes you were planning to buy (at least for me).
I knew that going to therapy is useful. I knew that so many people have been going to therapy because they think it’s life-saving. But I always made the same excuse I’ve always been making: it’s expensive. All the while I was making this excuse, I was eyeing that pair of Louboutins that I once saw in Harrods. I was being a hypocrite and was replacing actual therapy with retail therapy (yes, laugh at me, but retail therapy actually works…sometimes). I then read someone reflect of their year and said, “fuck it, your mental health is more important than the money that you’re not willing to spend.”
I then started to reach out to online counselling apps, which didn’t really work out in the end, but was a huge step for me anyways, and I started to reach out to the free counselling that my college is offering us. In our Chindo (Chinese-Indonesian) culture, or in Asian cultures generally, there is this mental health stigma that correlates therapy to disease, when it is absolutely not true. I’m sure that my friends and I were born and raised to understand that going to therapy means that you’re sick, and it is most definitely hard to break away from that stigma when we grew up with it.
I am now making it my personal mission and resolution to find a way of therapy that works for me in 2021. I am fortunate enough to not have to worry much about the financial aspects of it, so why shouldn’t I take advantage of this to improve and prioritize my mental wellbeing? I had never understood how important it truly was until I noticed how much it was affecting my physical body. When I was going through depressive and dark moments in 2020, my mental health was reacting so poorly to my physical body — I was unable to sleep, despite my usual easiness to fall into deep sleep, and my appetite went up and down every single day, causing me to have odd digestion issues. And it was this that made me stop and re-think my priorities; is it the sparkly shoes, or is it my health?
4. It is okay to outgrow something.
If being at home for 6 months taught me anything, it’s that I’ve outgrown it. Although Jakarta would always be my OG home, a place where my family resides, the place where I was born and raised, and the place where I am expected, I now consider London my home.
There’s nothing wrong with Jakarta, and there’s nothing wrong with my family’s culture or tradition, but sometimes I feel like it is just not the place where I see myself right now. I have outgrown the traditional expectations of being a Chindo girl. Again, nothing wrong with it, just that is is not for me. I have outgrown the thought of going home after I finish my undergraduates just so I can find a rich guy and marry him. I have outgrown the thought of being a housewife. I have outgrown the thought of letting go of myself just so I can fit into what society expects of me.
What if I don’t wanna get married? What if I’m gay? What if I wanna be a career-driven mother? What if I don’t want to have a family? All these questions would lead to me getting odd stares if I bring them up to my older family members. AGAIN, I am not saying that the culture is wrong or that it’s satanic, I’m just saying that it no longer fits into my expectations for me. I decided to confront this issue of outgrowing my past, so that I can move forward with my future. How will I grow if I cannot learn to outgrow?
I never found it difficult to think of all the things that I learned in 2020, mainly because these were the things that I have been neglecting and ignoring all my life. In 2020, I had so much free time being at home that I finally had the chance to encounter all of the challenging thoughts and patterns that I had been ignoring for so long; my need for control, my fear of body image, my denial for help, and my longing for something new.
As much as I would like to forget about all the shitty things that happened in the year, I’m not sure if I would actually like to forget about anything in 2020. So much has changed in me in the past year, that it’s safe for me to say that I am proud of myself.
One final thing, Paulo Coelho once wrote:
When you really want something, the universe always conspires in your favour.
