It’s been a long freaking year.

I love the end of the year. New Year’s is one of my favorite holidays. It’s a time where everything starts to wind down. It’s a time to finish any unfinished business because between the solstice and January 2nd we will be in our pajamas drinking hot chocolate. It’s a time to reflect the year that was and plan for the year yet to come. And the fact is, this year’s been a bust. For all the hope that the new decade was supposed to bring it’s been a bust. I say, better to cut our losses and use the year off as a tax write-off.

The year started off fine. I began the decade crowded in the vestibule of Planet Hollywood’s Miracle Mile, sipping a gin and tonic and trying to look over everyone to see the fireworks. On January 1st my family almost always goes up to Mt. Charleston. This year had a beautiful sunset. A lot of hope, a lot of good feelings, and a lot of things to look forward to. China was putting in place lockdowns to keep control of some new disease, but that virus had, what, a slightly higher infection rate? It didn’t even have a name. The 2019 Novel Coronavirus? 2019-nCoV? It was probably nothing, much ado about nothing, a new Swine Flu. It had been a decade since H1N1.

Whatever. I attended my first furcon, had the time of my life volunteering for LVL UP EXPO, attended another furcon, and finally got my boyfriend to move in with me. There was also ice skating in fun places, trips up mountains, and the university fur club some friends and I started was finally getting on its feet. Then, of course, things got bad around Spring Break. The first sign that something was wrong was when the Golden Knights sent out an email saying that the NHL had cancelled all hockey games indefinitely. Soon enough UNLV was canceling in-person classes after Spring Break.

The following months were a bit of a blur. Three months of lockdown meant, for me, a lot of cleaning and renovating the house. Also a couple of fires, mostly intentional, and a lot of pictures of my dogs. A lot of YouTube too. Masks turned from a really good idea to a hard rule, and because Americans can’t deal with even the slightest inconvenience, people started to complain. Then some police officers in Minneapolis killed an unarmed black man and we were reminded how bad police brutality in this country is. The president tear gassed protesters for a photo shoot.

Mt. Charleston burned. Independence Day came and went. I got a ferret for my boyfriend’s birthday and come September we got jobs at the Clark County Elections Department. I spent everyday testing the tabulation equipment while he helped train the in-person poll workers. For two weeks before election day I scanned ballots while he helped with paperwork. The most important event of the year went off without a hitch. The aftermath is a different story.

Full moon Halloween came and went, not much to say there. My boyfriend and I prepared the family dinner since we weren’t able to go to California this time. We drove to El Paso to get some paperwork done. Also spent my first Christmas not with the extended family for the first time this year. We opened presents and half-watched Christmas specials.

All in all it’s been a long, stressful, emotion-provoking year. On the other paw it was a short, boring, mostly uneventful year with not that much to get from it. I don’t know how that’s possible. The year sucked but it sucked because it was boring. It should’ve been a time for self-improvement but it wasn’t.

This is the year that broke things. Perhaps this is what we needed. To realize how fragile and wrong everything is. People waited weeks for unemployment. Many families sat around praying that they wouldn’t be evicted. People without health insurance were terrified of catching the virus. Police brutality turned out to be such a big issue that police officers attacked peaceful protesters during a protest against police brutality. All while Congress and the President sat around twiddling their thumbs. To prove to upper management that commuting often isn’t that necessary and that we can save a lot of money by not paying for office rent and by not forcing people to spend money on gasoline.

In a couple weeks, Donald will no longer be the president. The vaccine is on its way. Things are not going to get better the moment the clock strikes midnight. 2020 started great until things went south in March. But there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.

New Year’s is a time to reflect on the year that was and prepare for the year yet to come. When I was young I always saw it as a melancholic holiday. Never again would it be the year 2009 or so on. Now I see it differently. I see it as a time for hope. We made it to see another year, and with another year comes more opportunities. Never again will it be the year 2020, and that should be enough reason to hope.

Happy New Year