2020, 20/20

My hindsight is not 20/20 for 2020. It is still a work in progress, a quick intake of breath before another year crippled by disease. But keep reading.

2020 started with illness. I sat in a cafe and flirted with the guy I was dating, only to have him tell me that he was seeing someone else, too. That he’d rather be with her.

‘But you’re really cool.’

Okay, I thought. This is news that will hurt in just a little bit.

2020 was going to be a ‘clean’ year for me. But when I got home I destroyed my upper arm. I hacked into it with all I had. The next day, in Urgent Care, I admitted this to a doctor and he called the police.

It was a pleasant conversation. Oh, gosh, officer. I’m just so. Burned out at my job! I guess I’m just a girl who’s a bit lost, oh my goodness, it’s all good!

‘Are you taking meds?’ Why, yes! Xanax!

‘Ah - a six pack in a pill.’

Yes, officer. Sure.

It got worse. I was 51/50′d at the ER just a few days later, after my sister told me to stop talking to her. I’m not going to elaborate. This was in February.

I remember distinctly watching an Asian girl across from me in the ER. She was wearing a mask, the first person I’d seen in 2020 doing this. I remember staring at her in pity. What a thing, to feel threatened by the air you breathe.

In the mental hospital, your cell phone is taken away. The only means to contact someone outside of the ward is through a pay phone. My sister called me and told me that things would never be the same between us. My mom called me - I had hoped she wouldn’t find out about the ward - to tell me it’s all in my head. Again. We’ve been through this, mother. For twelve years it’s been ‘time to grow up.’ Imagine my voice cracking, repeating STOP over and over until I sobbed and bascially threw the pay phone back in its cradle.

The nurses didn’t come after me. Doctor: the nurses saw you crying. Then why didn’t they come after me?

Cue April. The month of magical thinking. I jumped on a website called “Prose.” and started ranting about having to endure quarantine for a whole month until things would go back to normal. So goes: oblivion. But how could I have known? Typing, typing. So it goes.

I find that happiness is boring. Who remembers sitting on the back deck, drinking a margarita and watching the sunset, when you can remember being carted away in an ambulance and spending $2,500 to go two blocks to the ward? It’s just so much more - real.

But happiness is real, too. I met my boyfriend in June, through a friend. I’ve hung out with friends, social-distanced style. We’ve gone pumpkin picking. It’s October, fyi, and it’s still sunny and warm in California. I got a job in June that I enjoy. I’m moving into a new apartment soon, a beautiful studio downtown. I’m getting a dog, the one I’ve always wanted. I’m getting a new therapist - I made that phone call, finally.

2020. What a year. And as for hindsight being 20/20?

Maybe there’s some realness in this new normal.