I’m Alive! Or how I survived 2020…
…losing three jobs, new lovers and a handful of friends
There’s so much to celebrate, at the turn of the New Year. For some of us who got this far, untouched by the epidemic, alive, and more transformed that we ever expected. It’s been nine mad months, looking ahead to new beginnings, hope, progression; and although feeling successfully lucky, we paid a price. At least I did, deeply, because just when I thought I was over my darkest period ever, personally, a new global one started. And don’t mention “reinventing” yourself: it was a new birth, all right. Somehow, thanks to a few decisive elements, I didn’t lose my mind and I’m ready for the final curtain.
Don’t dream it’s over
This was not the plan. This year, this hole, this intense parenthesis. It’s New Year, and I’m wondering. How did we get here? It seems only like yesterday when we were starting a new magic year, a beautiful number, 2020, full of expectations. And everything stopped. Where were you? Do you remember?
I know where I was. Mainly entering the promise of my new-life third year, since I divorced in 2018. Foolish, I was convinced I could finally push ahead a new chapter, alone, with plenty of jobs in my hand. Two teaching positions, part-time, in Madrid, combined with a crazy but fun job as a food tours guide that kept me busy, drinking and eating, meeting a lot of new faces, two to three nights a week. Enjoying life, culture, attending football matches with my team (Atletico de Madrid, of course), dating like a fortynager… I even got lucky, extremely lucky, on the eve of the lockdown, meeting someone who gave us, the two of us, an absolutely delicious night of conversations, dance and sex. Hang on, two nights. Greetings, my dear one, you know who you are.
And the world stopped
Like everyone else, I thought it would be a small delay. Classes would resume shortly, even though most of my students (used to) come from the U.S. Food tours, nights out, naughty fun, Tinder dates, would come back. Right after Easter, we thought, life would resume…
My latest film project, a short documentary, scheduled to be released around May during a big political event, would be fine. We would all be fine, actually, it would be -was going to be- great to stop radically and write, think, disconnect, for maybe a month. Man, catching up with all those tv shows…
Until we understood that it was going to be way more than that.
And the collapse began.
All that creativity during the first days, the webinars, the online fitness programs, the non stop Zoom group chats, the euphoria (denial, my friends) froze. We saw the face of the devil. Jobs that would not come back soon (my three jobs, clearly postponed to 2021, if lucky); casualties and losses, victims with names, getting closer; money running out; fear steppin’ in.
I was there too. Until a string of salvations… rescued me.
Hello darkness my old friend
They say “confinement” is the word that will represent the year 2020. Closed-in, at home, we enjoyed getting in touch with old friends, creating new social online routines, sharing drinks, tips about films, series, books. So much music. Until the silence, took over.
It was the time for the negotiation.
I was really concerned, like you, about The Day After. I live under the New Economy, a wretched sick system where we live only for today, hardly ever saving for tomorrow, embracing a narcissistic optimism where nothing was going to happen. But it did, still does. Worst scenario took place. No income, no jobs, no future.
Eventually, my mind got wild, intense, demanding, and sleeping became difficult. That’s when my first salvation happened.
They call it meditation, I call it soulvation
I’ve been meditating for more than three years, started right before my divorce, and I guess one could say it certainly helped me to find the necessary peace of mind to take such a huge leap (after 15 years of marriage). Then it helped me to stay away from depression, anxiety and deep loneliness.
I’m not a very spiritual person, but I try to respect a certain spirituality that makes crazy humans a little bit better to each other. Meditation, though connected to ancient traditions goes beyond religion, since it doesn’t try to explain the world and mortality with magic. It only tries to ease our hyperactive minds, looking inside of our (let’s call it) souls. Or in a less poetic way, our brains.
Every morning, sometimes for ten minutes, sometimes for a full hour, I’d sink in my meditation, following some of the classic mindfulness exercises. I need to meditate right at the beginning of the day. I feel my brain is clean, fresh, specially since I don’t touch my cell phone or any screens before I do it. Thanks to that discipline I managed to block some of the most obsessive, toxic, negative thoughts that started dominating my mood.
Then, my second salvation embraced me… One that has been with me as far as I can remember in my life.
Music is my sanctuary
“Music makes you dance, puts you on a trance…” say the lyrics to the all-time jazz-funk classic from Gary Bartz.
And the whole world played on and on, so many songs, unapologetic anthems like Gloria Gaynor’s I will survive, or in my case silly nostalgic tunes such as I’m Alive, by the Electric Light Orchestra. Or, on the other side of the spectrum, what I consider could be one the the most pertinent tunes of the pandemic: Stephen Sondheim’s No One Is Alone (which Bernadette Peters performed precisely during the lockdown).
Because sharing beautiful music was part of my third salvation…
True friends
I’ve lived a double crash in three years. First, my divorce, then the epidemic. Both disasters have tested my friendships in a way nothing else had done before. I could blame it on the stars, because every single Capricorn I know has lived an intense period of change and personal growth over the same period. Good news? 2021 will see a shining new dawn.
Meanwhile, accepting I’ve entered my third act in life, a huge part of my past friends dissolved. And once the resentment, the bitterness and disgust settles, again with the help of meditation (and long walks, amazing bicycle rides), clearing away the people who were around you with the only purpose of getting things from you, balance moves in. And exactly the same happened during the lockdown and consecutive waves (here we are, still riding the third one in Spain).
I’ve rediscovered brothers and sisters I have in life. True friends who care, support, listen, make you feel good, and at the same time they feed in you the will to be generous, open, supportive with them, and new ones.
This has been my true treasure in 2020. Feeling very close a small bunch of people, mostly sister-friends, who helped me, pushed me, and I know will be with me against all odds.
Love will come again
2020 will be remembered, in my journal of life, as a great voyage into my loving feelings, the growth in the search for love. Because the radical stop of lockdown felt like jumping off a fast train. One I was riding of dates, new faces, non lasting pleasures. And don’t get me wrong: I was loving it! But it was enough…
I don’t want to get into the details of how dating online has been during the lockdown, when all the sudden tons of people entered Tinder, Ok Cupid, or whatever is your fav app. I see these apps as a social tool, regardless your real goals (sex, love or …marriage!), one that will take me to a good time, true conversation around a cup of coffee or a few margaritas. Make me laugh, take me dancing, light up my desire! And yes, I do enjoy the delicious extra of a good night having sex. But the whole thing trembled down for me, and I’m out of that nonsense.
I don’t feel sore about it, don’t feel negative about it, don’t see myself psychodemanding, or too busy. I’m open: for a good thing. Just that. And I probably only discovered it thanks to the extreme pause I had to take.
So thanks, you stupid virus.
Change is the word
I’m going to take it very easy with my expectations for 2021. They say, some voices, we’re about to begin a mad, fun, exciting new Roaring Twenties (precisely one century later, also after a global conflict). Great! I’ll be happy to get my friends to the dance club and celebrate life. Without masks, if you please…
I don’t want to forget the suffering ones, the deceased, the new victims of the broken economy, the non-humans. I’ve started a new professional challenge this autumn, committing myself more to the cause of social change regarding the rights of non-human earthings. And that word, change, should be the heart of this year. Let’s leave confinement and embrace CHANGE.
In the final words of this collaborative poem, An Orchestra of Unexpected Sounds…
“hope is a clear canvas I draw my heartbeat on”
