Twenty-Twenty

“2020 forced us to feel everything intensely.... to hold with newfound awe the blessings we took for granted and to wade slowly through with inner strength and forced awareness the unsavoury which we would usually rush past.”

— Mae

Can you believe 2020 is almost over? Or maybe I should ask - Can you believe we made it to the end of 2020? We started this year on a nice trip with friends, 8 of us on New Year’s Eve enjoying a funny incident involving 2 bottles of champagne and lots of shenanigans on the cobblestone streets and many many steps of old town Lisbon. I don’t know about you but for a good portion of this year, I couldn’t/ wouldn’t look past the day or hour in front of me because how do you start with such promise and then just turn out to be, you know, whatever this has been? When you think of the amount of “change” that occurred this year and its sheer magnitude, you realise it’s no wonder that literally everyone at one point or another had no choice but to let our default defence mechanisms kick in. In fact, some of us developed new ones on the fly!

I remember being tickled by the name of a local newspaper when I was a child - The Daily Punch. I vividly remember saying to a friend that my Daddy reads Guardian and Vanguard because we don’t like punches in our house. And we were so amused that we laughed for the longest time. In hindsight that should have been one of the first signs that comedy was not in my future…. or that I would always have super supportive friends maybe?…. But seriously though, hasn’t unlocking our phones, watching the news, scrolling on social media, heck, even simply having conversations, felt like receiving daily punches? For the first time we watch the news and look around us and realise that it’s not just sound to fill the silence. It’s actually real stuff that can affect us right now. The fact that you can draw a straight line from holding the handrail on the escalator at the shop or train station (which was an advisable safety precaution only a few months ago) to being infected and possibly dying is mind-boggling and the realisation of this new brand of “life is so fickle” feels like a daily punch every time it occurs to me.

If you know me well, you know I’m not a very serious person, and it’s one of the things I’ve loved the most about myself as I’ve grown up. My fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants approach has worked so far but even that was tested this year. I had to accept that despite being a natural freestyler, 2020 was shaping up to be an unexpected test of how long I could count on being Ms Adaptable before I admitted that my circadian cycle had been upended…..

I’ve developed more muscle, more stamina, more grit, and somehow more positivity, more focus on the things that truly matter, a clearer perspective, more nimble movement as I oscillate between the helicopter view and the pan-and-zoom into the nitty-gritty. And I’m also learning, by necessity, to not be so hard on myself.

But I can’t help but wonder. If my adaptability has been put to the test, how much more those who struggle with uncertainty on a normal day? If my creativity has felt stifled sometimes, how much more those whose livelihoods depend on their ability to create on demand? If my mental health has taken a punch and turned my bubbly (most popular word people used to describe me when I asked on IG a few days ago) into a mild fizzle and sometimes even plain flat, how much more those who struggled to fit in from the start?

My altered travel plans, infected acquaintances, recently unemployed friends, less time running in the sun, inexplicable sadness and minimal desire to get out of bed on some days have sometimes made me yoyo in that unhealthy cycle of self-pity, survivor’s guilt, homesickness, helplessness and all that other new stuff I started feeling in 2020. I can’t ignore the good stuff like launching Good Living with Mae, being healthy and safe and gainfully employed, making new friends, watching my kids grow, learning so much more about myself etc. But how do I put this tapestry together in a way that makes sense? Or does it need to make sense?

Are we going to hold on to the way things were and hope that the disruption of 2020 subsides or should we stay open and flexible and see what 2021 brings? Are we going to plan and vision-board our way into the hopeful future we so desperately need to hold on to, or should we simply wait and see how it goes?

So I’m pretty sure you know where I’m going with this.

Let’s do it all! Let’s look ahead but with respect for what we’ve been through. Let’s hope in anticipation of the big picture but still plan anyway. Let’s envision the next 12+x months but leave room to use those adaptability muscles we’ve been working out. Let’s not be bogged down on making it make sense that we forget to slow down and feel and simply be.

I’m spending the next few days to wrap up the year doing just this - reflecting, planning, dreaming, praying, and just being. And I encourage you to try this as well.

Here are a few things I’m finding useful these days:

Journalling: I plan to journal religiously in 2021, using Abiola’s journaling guide. Have a look here and download the guide if you want to give this a shot.
Vision boards: I love to visualise things and putting a vision board together is a fun creative exercise as well. It’s like translating my big dreams and plans to something pretty and inspiring. One of my friends has her vision board as her phone’s lock screen, I like to keep it in its own corner where I can pull up to get inspired, some others have theirs on an actual board. Whatever works for you, but yeah I’m a fan of vision-boarding and it really helped me focus amid the ridiculousness of 2020. Here’s a good piece on this fun topic.
Gratitude Exercises: My friend Karachi did the Gratitude jar (365 days) in 2018. I think developing a habit of gratitude helps create the right posture in our minds and keeps things in perspective. So whatever form it takes, being grateful and having a routine is always a good idea!
Health: While I’ve allowed myself to slow down and indulge in some inevitable extra calories and subsequent kilos this Christmas season, I’ll be picking up my Pegasus 37s and jumping right back to the pavement in a few days, getting back to my yoga stretches, and I also intend to end the year with a 3-day cleanse diet to kick things off.
Music and Inspo: In 2021, I’ll be sharing a lot of quick flashes with you - music I’m listening to, fun stuff I’m reading etc. So stay tuned!
Good food: ummmm….. right here on my Recipes page
Rest: On some days this season, I just sleep or lounge in bed and do nothing. And in my book, that’s as healthy and productive as doing anything else, because resting helps me show up even better when I have to get moving!