Memories I Wish to Carry From 2020

You know what!? I had so many plans for 2020 and now at the end of the year you can imagine what happened to those. The beginning of 2020 was super exciting. After all we entered in a new decade, so the excitement and celebration of new year was double. Not only me, but I’ve also heard from so many people that they had plans and resolutions for THE 2020 which flopped mournfully, and we became caged like the animals in zoo. No no I’m not going to give lectures on “we keep animals in cages now it’s our time, now humans will suffer” and all that. I am here just to do a little chitchat with you guys on the new year eve.

So, yeah, I was talking about my plans in 2020. In this I finally graduated, crossed the first step of conventional education. I thought I’d party hard, instead I was sitting at home lazily. In other years where we long to rest and relax for a bit, here in 2020 we were doing it the whole year. I know the loss is unpayable, but have you thought that a break was indeed necessary? We, the humans are the most selfish beings. We misused and abused nature in many different ways and it’s been happening since the dawn of civilization. Deforestation and urbanization have become a common thing. We don’t think about other species of lives. Why are we like this? I wonder and then I’m embarrassed. Also, after doing all of these and experiencing a global pandemic, we have not stopped. It’ll go on and we’ll move towards our own destruction very quickly.

2020 was a real mess. But if God has put it in the calendar, he’d definitely done it thoughtfully, right? So many unexpected things happened this year in my life. Who knew 2020 would bring this much courage in me! Love, heartbreaks, friendships – among all these common issues I found something new, I found myself, in a new way. One of my teachers used to say, “It takes a lot to say ‘No’, to deny something”. I, the girl, who has only been taught to say ‘yes’ and always keep my head down and be a good girl, finally learnt to refuse and say ‘no’ to people, prioritize what I want. I got new friends and a chance to surround myself with some beautiful souls. Some bonding's got stronger, some got weaker; gained some new people and lost some.

Keeping the massive loss in mind, I’m sure something good certainly happened to you too. Come on, 2020 can’t be all bad, nothing can be. This year I got so much time to watch my favorite movies and read amazing books.

But I’m a little worried and don’t know where 2021 will lead us. And I have to be a little more pensive while taking new year resolutions. But every new year brings new hopes and aspirations for us. We’ll look for new ambitions, set new goals and hope for a better tomorrow even if we don’t want to. Humans can give up everything but hope. After all we should remember what Thomas Hardy said, “There is great strength in hope”.

-------- Aditi Sarkar