2020: A {Year} in the {Rearview}

Despite the horrific circumstances we’ve faced in 2020, I could honestly go on and on about how I inevitably found the time to do this thing, made notable impressions with that thing, and that I accomplished blah blah blah.

Please forgive my unenthused tone. I am truly proud of my journalism career. Being admittedly compulsively creative, I work to outperform myself which I did at great lengths over the past 12 months.

But who cares??!!!

Getting Perspective: Looking in the Rearview at 2020

My victories are incredibly minor compared to the gargantuan losses that so many suffered this year. Hundreds of thousands of people—loved ones, loved ones of friends, and friends of loved ones—are dead. As a writer, I always try to maintain perspective. And from this view, it’s hard to celebrate or feel joy when surrounded by this much pain.

The True Standouts

There was constant talk about essential workers this year. About how we should commend them for what they’ve done and how much they’ve endured in service to the public during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020.

Medical professionals get special applause and merit, as they should. While they were fighting tirelessly to save lives, we were obsessively washing the hands we applauded them with because we didn’t want to get sick. Nurses, doctors, and healthcare workers are overworked and overwhelmed, reporting levels of burnout and trauma from the stress of working so hard and with so little reprieve during the pandemic. We have to do better. But many simply chose not to.

The Blur Months: What I Remember and Don’t

Early parts of 2020 were inadvertently forgettable. As the managing editor, co-founder, and a writer for THISENT.com, I remember publishing an extensive run of “Best of 2019” articles in January before launching an incredibly successful “19 to 20” Q&A series in February.

On Valentine’s Day I was with my All of the Above HipHop Academy family at The Loft in Lansing, Michigan for a sold-out Rakim concert. Our crew opened for the hip-hop icon, and I had the honor of hosting the night. I received some concerning news the following morning from an associate who works for the Michigan Occupational Health and Safety Administration. They told me about the coronavirus, and the high likelihood of a pandemic. My fears were valid but minor until news reports began to mount. The community panicked, and the virus spread quickly in just two weeks time. Everyone I was closest to was terrified. My memory got obstructed after that.

For a few months I, basically, continued to live the same day over. I really had no clue what day it was and couldn’t distinguish one moment from the next. I’d be awake late at night trying to write but couldn’t focus well enough to finish anything. This was thanks to a new obsession to check the news every few minutes.

Eventually I’d grab a tub of Lysol wipes and frantically disinfect my entire house. Once I was done, I’d go to sleep for a couple hours. I’d wake up and have some breakfast, check the news, make lunch, home school, check the news, clean my kitchen, make dinner, check the news, try to write while continuously checking the news. Repeat.

My body was paying for it. I was Bill Murray in Groundhog Day only this was real life and it wasn’t funny. A sadly reoccurring thought during this time loop was how awful it was for the overwhelmed hospital workers to constantly, continuously, witness so much death. No soaps or sanitizers could wash that away. No amount of alcohol, 70 percent or higher, was going to disinfect the PTSD germs sickening their mental health.

My review of 2020 is more of a glance in the rearview. It’s me looking back to pay my respects to everyone who can’t read about how I inevitably found the time to do this thing, made notable impressions with that thing, and that I accomplished blah blah blah.