Goodbye 2020

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Bailey made up an Instagram post today, but it was too long for IG, so she had to cut it down. However, I loved what she wrote and wanted to share this in its entirety. 
2020 was a crazy year. It felt somehow both like the worst Nicholas Cage movie and the longest nap. My number one business goal was to source more and pick up higher dollar items, but 2020 had other plans. I haven't been to a thrift store, grocery store, library, anywhere since March. Quarantine began for us on March 14th, the day after schools decided to close for the rest of the academic year. We thought it would be a few months tops. We thought the nation would band together to end this thing and save lives. Oh how naïve.
2020 was the year of new hobbies and picking up old ones. I learned to tie dye and loved it. I have plants now and they are all alive and thriving. Okay fine, I may have killed a couple of them. Who knew ivy was so temperamental? I reread books that I loved in high school and found comfort in them. I listened to Harry Potter on repeat and finally got my mom to watch all of the movies with me. I journaled for a week, baked a few times, decluttered and recluttered. It was the year of online shopping, contactless pickups, drive-thru prescriptions, and any reason to go for a drive. 
It was the year of repairmen and new appliances. Because we were hiding from the world, I guess 2020 decided to bring the world to us. We had to have more repairmen in the house this year than the last five combined. We couldn't pull another Tennessee summer out of our air conditioner, and despite endless attempts of Drano the kitchen sink determined to be professionally fixed. July brought an unexpected dryer repair, and October decided to doom it and the washer completely and simultaneously. April brought tornados that knocked the power out for days. Those were the worst of the quarantine days. The spring also brought the loss of my cousin Joseph. 
It was the year that ThredUp went from an exciting business endeavor to the greatest disappointment in the span of a week. The cats don't expect breakfast at 6:30 in the morning anymore, but they get more attention now than ever. Instagram and TikTok became my anchors to the real world. We learned how to clean strawberries. Who knew there were bugs in there? The name Karen became synonymous with raging psycho, and toilet paper was a hot commodity for a minute. My vision for my first PoshFest was of a flight to a beautiful city, crashing in a hotel room with some fellow Poshers, and meeting many of you in a pretty dress and annoying shoes. Instead I was in my bedroom wearing the comfiest (and ugliest) shorts I own and fretting over Zoom links and YouTube buffering. Somehow it was just as exhausting. 
It was the year of self hair cuts. It was the year of staying home because of a pandemic and because of self hair cuts. I learned to source online and embrace the $5 and $10 flips again. I learned to tell myself "it's temporary" every day and believe it. I learned how it feels to be abandoned by our leaders with a pandemic and a forthcoming recession. I learned what it feels like to be angry and become exhausted from being angry at the people in charge. I learned what it's like to be exhausted from being exasperated by the president's actions every single day. While I held this belief before, I learned monumentally the importance of voting and paying attention to what our leaders are doing and not doing for us. I learned to pay attention to what they stand for. I learned that too many of them stand for money. I learned that they will dump their stocks before warning the American people who voted for them that danger is coming.
I learned the words 'immunocompromised' and 'comorbidities', and wish I never had to. I learned what hospitals have to do when they run out of beds. I learned about my white privilege and my white-washed education and vowed to do better, to learn, to read, and to grow. I learned it's not enough to post a black square and call yourself an ally. I learned that too many people won't wear a mask even if it means saving another's life. I learned that a year can be seen as a villain. 2020 was rough and cruel. It was boring and terrifying, and if all you could do this year was survive then that's okay. If you lost someone you loved this year, I'm so sorry. Here's hoping 2021 will be better and if you made it this far thank you. I hope you have a lovely New Year. 
BaileyBaileyAlexInc