I've found it hard even to start this. The year, obviously, has been consumed by COVID. But it's been such a wildly different experience here in Melbourne. Every time I start on a summary, it feels almost disrespectful. I can only watch events in America (and Europe) with disbelief and horror, but it's all at a remove.

Australia’s in good shape. Numbers in Melbourne got out of control earlier on, peaking around 700 new cases a day; but our state premier introduced one of the hardest lockdowns in the world, including no travel more than 5 km from your home (save for essential work and such like) and an evening curfew. There was a cost in businesses and livelihoods, but it worked; we got rid of COVID more or less completely. Ryan spent his last semester back at school. We could attend his graduation ceremony. My brother could come over for Christmas. I could run D&D games for Ryan’s friends again. Melbourne ended the year with two straight months of zero community cases. (They’ve just tightened things up a bit again because of a Sydney outbreak that’s jumped borders, but so far it’s under control.)

At a personal level, Biyi and I have been working from home since March. Ryan spent a good chunk of the year in remote learning too. I’ve loved not having to go into the office; the commute takes three hours out of my day in total. I’m much happier using that time to get more work done, get more family time and get more sleep. (And I like the company here far more.) I just had a regular check-up, my health’s actually improved over the year. I think most of that is getting more sleep. (We’ve also been doing personal training sessions over Zoom.)

This year Biyi finished a three-year project. She’s been taking the lead on developing an online Chinese-English glossary of legal terms (which from my perspective was an extended exercise in herding bilingual cats). This year it went live, which was very cool. I’m very proud of her.

Ryan graduated from primary school. He’s been very happy there. It’s on basically the same grounds as the secondary school he’ll be attending from next year. We got him an Xbox in November (early Christmas pressie); I think he earned it with how he coped with the disruption this year.

Also on Ryan, in January I took him to his very first D&D convention, which he loved. A couple of months later I started running a D&D game for a group of his friends. (In his graduation video, he appears with two others reading Xanathar’s Guide to Everything.) We had to pause during lockdown, but were able to get a couple of sessions in before the year ended. Two of the other dads (and one uncle) have also joined the party. The culmination of a plan eleven years in the making!

Biyi’s parents are going well too. We completed the extension for them a couple of years ago, so we’ve had room for everyone even in lockdown. They’re both pushing 80, so we’re particularly concerned to keep them safe.

2020 tried to get some shots in on the way out – Biyi came down with shingles and apparently my dad’s in hospital with a broken foot – but we’ve been fortunate this year.

I am definitely looking forward tot he Roaring 20s, whenever that begins.

Flea, I’m impressed you schedule your despair and keep it to an hour :) I’m rooting for poor Casper. What a way to have to wrap up school, ugh.

Billytea I’m so glad to hear some decent news!! That all sounds great (though omg 3 hour commute?!? Hope you never have to go back)

billytea, thank you for your post. It is a reminder that it is possible for things to get better.

I feel unmoved or unready to bid 2020 goodbye and good riddance. It's not that I don't want to see the ass end of it. I guess it won't feel real to me (i.e. that 2020 is actually gone) until Agent Orange is out of the White House.

I guess it won't feel real to me (i.e. that 2020 is actually gone) until Agent Orange is out of the White House.

I realized at some point that my personal headcanon is that the year started at the beginning of March and ends (glob willing) on Jan 20 -- just as decades are marked by their cultural tags and not their exact starts and ends.

Anyway, I'm looking eagerly toward the end of this one, but not remotely surprised that it's gasping out these last few weeks like the motherfucker we always knew it to be.

Amych, that's funny, because I kind of think that way anyhow, because my birthday is in early March. I've definitely been feeling that way because of COVID. Our real last outing was on my birthday dinner (I would have picked a pricier place).

Yes, I’ve been kind of feeling like March is going to be my sticking point. One year of this. A change in year doesn’t get me, but having to do April in quarantine AGAIN? Somehow that is too much for me. I fear breakdown at that point.

I feel like that about Passover

I feel like that about Passover

Same. 2020 Passover was the first family gathering I canceled due to Covid. (Well, technically my grandmother's funeral in March was first but that wasn't something we'd been, you know, PLANNING for months in advance.)

Events keep interrupting my sitting down and posting about 2020. How very 2020.

But I finally decided to just dive in and do it because who the hell knows what will happen next. And there are some things I can say here that I didn't say here: [link]

For me, 2020 was a mixed blessing. I feel very fortunate, but also completely exhausted and very angry.

My year was dominated by the work project from hell. The client was demanding, the project management horrible, and the schedule constantly shifting. The only upside was being paid by the hour. So, for the first time since I started this self-employed venture 8 years ago and initially depleted my emergency fund, I’ve been able to build it back up again. However all this work meant I dropped off the face of the earth for weeks at a time and just couldn’t keep up with social networks, including here.

Otherwise, having a lot of work meant that staying home wasn’t really a challenge in and of itself; however, given the added stress of the pandemic, I had a really hard time focusing on anything, which only compounded my work stress. And then there were various home invasions (fleas! mold!) as well as medical stuff (sonograms! biopsies!) that just seemed overwhelming to deal with while in lockdown (especially with no car and what amounts to no public transit). I'm thankful these issues seem to be behind me now. Though a mouse ran into my apartment just today so, again, who knows?

The one huge upside to this difficult year has been having the Math Greek here full time. For one, I am so glad he isn’t in L.A. because I would be worrying about him constantly. Given the size of my apartment, I wasn’t sure how being together 24-7 would play out, but it has been remarkably smooth, beyond the mostly self-imposed burden of “OMG, what are we going to eat tonight?” I’m not sure where we’ll go from here, but it looks like we won’t have many other options for at least the next few months in any case.

Which leaves me with where I ended up at the end of 2020, happy to have a bit of breathing room after an exhausting year, generally looking forward to 2021 (and hopefully reconnecting with people, reading and relaxing more, getting back to blogging, etc.), but really, really angry with all the fuckery around the election and the pandemic and those who have caused all this to be so much worse than it needed to be. And that was before this nightmare of a week.

My heart goes out to all those who have suffered losses of any kind this year and mad respect to those who’ve had to get through this with far more responsibilities than I have had.

I miss the Buffistas and hope to be a more than a random delurker in the coming year.