When it comes to 2020 there is just so much I don’t know how to organize my thoughts and what to put on paper. I guess we’ll just go through the months and see where this goes. Starting with January. 

JANUARY

 12:00 to be exact. I was with my huge family celebrating the new year and new beginnings. I specifically remember this one picture that I always refer back to, as I had no idea what was to come. Captioned with “2020 hope this year brings nothing but blessings thank you to all who stood by me” and within the first two months of the year my (and everyone else’s) life was turned upside down. That caption would be one of the things I reflected on the most, how this year brought tragedies instead of blessings and some of those who stood by me did no longer. 2020 was filled with such disappointment and anger but after being filled with that anger and sadness for such a long time I realized that dwelling on the negative wasn’t gonna change the fact that it happened, onto February.

FEBRUARY/MARCH 

This was when the cases were starting to pick up. It wasn’t a concern to the point where the world felt like ending more of something that was in the back of your head. That month I attended the last party for a very long time with all of my family. March. Now this is where all hell broke loose. Only two weeks into the month I would have to say goodbye to the freedom that I kicked myself for not talking advantage of. March 13 was the last day we would ever attend school the normal way. Talking about it during my Algebra two class instead of doing work cause who could focus on math when the world is slowly crumbling… With Mr. Fallot saying, “Well if we don’t come back, this is bye for a long time” to which I responded “Fallot stop playing; I’ll see you on Monday.” Little did I know that weekend would extend to the rest of the school year.

It was by far the worst month of the year where I would find death within the family every week like I couldn’t escape the grief. Trying my best to cheer my mom and sister up who already suffers from depression was one of the hardest things I had to do.  Not only was the world falling apart, but so were they. I felt like I needed to be strong. I didn’t have time to worry or go through grief myself in order to help them. So it took a while to realize how bad it was. It all hit me at once– crying at night to not worry everyone else, rationing food as supermarkets were empty, trying to keep up with school work as teachers were handing out work left and right (some more understanding than others). 

APRIL

This one had a very rough start the first week my older sister was in quarantine after being rushed into the urgent care for chest pain. My cousin who lives downstairs celebrated her birthday through a Facetime call with us and the rest of our family. Since my sister couldn’t leave her room I would sit outside of her room on the floor and talk to her to keep her company and while I was not doing that I was praying with my mom that she would be OK and that it wouldn’t spread to the rest of us especially my mom who is immunocompromised. By the time Easter rolled around she was much better and was out of quarantine we celebrated Easter with a nice dinner with my cousins from downstairs where we all prayed for those who weren’t as fortunate as us to be able to be as a family together due to loss or hospitalization and to those going through rough times financially.

MAY 

May was probably one of the calmest/ uneventful months of the year; it was spent catching up on assignments that were piling up and scrolling through TikTok trying to keep me distracted from the fact that this isn’t going away soon.

JUNE 

By the time June came around things were opening back up as cases were decreasing here in New York. We were slowly not becoming the epicenter of the virus. We were able to celebrate my cousin’s graduation from high school as she is a first generation graduate. Of course with mask and precautions and we weren’t there for long and the church I attended finally opened back up for its first service in months. Taking a look around, noticing that many of us weren’t there, to which the pastor announced that they unfortunately didn’t make it. I remember praying for their families as they must have been going through so much grief. Now halfway through the year of tragedies things started to look up as summer was approaching and even though we were still in a pandemic,I at least had the relief of no school work.

JULY 

This was the month where I decided to start running again to get into shape just in case they allowed sports in the fall and running those monsters during soccer practice is terrible when you haven’t ran in a long time. So every morning I would wake up at 6:30 start my run/walk at 7 along with my sister and cousin and we would walk all the way to a nice view of the ocean and run back. It felt great as I was able to think and let everything go as I felt the warm summer breeze.

AUGUST 

Being Latina is one of the things that represent who I am and as we all know having a quince is traditional in Latin culture I wasn’t able to have mine in 2019 which was when I was supposed to have it. So we were planning to have it in 2020 but the pandemic hit. I was distraught as the church service is the most important part becoming a faithful woman to God, but since Covid cases were low they were allowing larger gatherings and my parents decided to give me one with only close family.  It was the best thing that happened this year. Being with close family made it feel more personal to celebrate such an important moment. My last few weeks of summer were spent outside playing soccer and filled with excitement since I would be going back to school.

SEPTEMBER 

The fresh start to a new year with high hopes of having a season with a bit of delay I walked into…no, not school– more like my living room, to receive my first day of school. Being hybrid was most definitely a step up from completely at home, but it was most definitely going to be something I had to get used to.  Seeing people that I haven’t seen in months was comforting. Later on in the month our soccer season was being pushed to the spring which was concerning, meaning that cases were starting to rise again.

OCTOBER 

October wasn’t super eventful. I can’t really remember much that happened this month besides joining new clubs that I never thought I would join. I figured that since my sport is pushed to the spring I might as well try new clubs such as Warrior Nation, Newspaper and Breaking Borders. This decision was one of the best things I could have possibly done. I really enjoy writing articles for the newspaper and discussing ways to improve the school in Warrior Nation.

NOVEMBER 

By the time November came around all I could look forward to was Thanksgiving break as it is one of my favorite holidays! Only this year I wasn’t able to spend it with my dad because he had to work since 2020 has been a rough year. At least we were able to celebrate it twice since my mom made another dinner the day my dad came back from his trip (he’s a truck driver). That was pretty much it for the month of November.

DECEMBER 

Finally the last month to this dreadful year, but who could think about all the negatives when Christmas was around the corner–oh wait that would be put aside since Covid cases were rising again and we couldn’t gather with anyone except for those who you live with which was weird since I have such a large family. Playing secret santa through Facetime was not it. The lag and poor signal didn’t make it as fun, but I was still so grateful to have one way to connect with my family. But although I was connected with my family I was and had been disconnected with my friends. As I mentioned before, this year showed me that not everyone was going to stick by you even though they were the ones who did the year before this year showed me that maybe at least for now taking a break from them wasn’t a bad idea. In order for me to grow as a person I needed to leave behind what was weighing me down, so as I entered the new year I felt lighter. Two weeks into the year I would finally let go of them, which was one of the biggest decisions I had to make since I had been friends with them for such a long time, but it felt like something that I needed to do. 

And that’s that! My recap of the year was complete. It was a very… interesting year, most definitely unique, and unlike others, but I’m just glad I survived it. As always be safe, be happy and have a GREAT 2021!!