End of Year Survey 2020
In all the years I’ve been doing this, I’m not sure if I’ve ever waited until January 28th of the following year to complete the End of Year Survey. But 2020 has not been a typical year, and the end of it was particularly tumultuous, not only on a global scale, but also personally.
For those of you reading at some vague future date, it’s important to note that people had been looking forward to the end of 2020 eagerly, as if they thought some switch would be flipped and all of the horror and badness that took over in 2020 would magically end in 2021. I think the storming of the US Capitol on January 6th and the push to impeach Donald Trump a second time has already demonstrated that 2021 will be a depressing continuation of what started in 2020. (At least Joe Biden is a breath of fresh air!) And while the Covid-19 vaccine is here, the pandemic is not going away anytime soon. So honestly, I don’t believe that 2021 is going to be much better than 2020. That sounds like a depressing statement, and I don’t mean it that way, because there are many things in my life to be happy about. But I try to be realistic.
1. What did you do in 2020 that you'd never done before?
Well…I faced a global pandemic. I learned how to work from home and parent my three year old daughter Élise at the same time my school was shut down (I was not particularly successful at either venture). Philippe and I did a complete overhaul of our garden (our Pandemic Project, I guess). Then, in December, after another year of failing to get pregnant, we attempted IVF, and it worked. I am now five weeks pregnant and praying that everything will go well.
2. Did you keep your New Year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Here were my resolutions from last year.
1. Finish my podcast.
2. Get serious about core workouts.
3. Become more environmentally friendly and reduce waste.
4. Learn to skate.
I accomplished none of them, except maybe for #3, as I did learn how to compost. But generally, I was focused on getting through the days. I did continue to run and do other kinds of exercise, but I’ll admit that with all races cancelled, I lacked focus and direction. I did keep writing, but I mostly spun my wheels. Now I can’t learn to skate this winter because it doesn’t seem like a good idea to fall on butt numerous times while pregnant. Also the stores are closed (except for essential items) so I can’t buy skates anyway, neither for me nor Élise. I am disappointed about this as I was really looking forward to helping her learn while I learned too.
Normally, I would be unhappy about how poorly I’ve fared on my resolutions. But this year I’m giving myself a pass.
In that vein, my only resolution for 2021 is to be more community-oriented. For me that means joining a new church and actively getting involved, even if I can only do so virtually. I’ve also joined an organization called Climate Justice Montreal that is working to fight against climate change.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No. My friend Michelle, who has been trying to get pregnant for years, has gotten pregnant at last and is due in March, but didn’t give birth in 2020. I am glad that our kids will be able to play together when they are older!
4. Did anyone close to you die?
I am very fortunate in that I do not know anyone personally who has died from Covid, but I do know a number of people who had loved ones die. One friend of mine lost both her mother-in-law and father-in-law. Another lost her aunt. Philippe and I made the difficult decision not to go to Ontario to visit my parents at Christmas because we didn’t want to risk infecting them. But there has been so much sickness and death this year.
5. What countries did you visit?
Very few people are travelling, and the majority of those who are travelling, shouldn’t be. (Look at the politicians who got busted for fancy Hawaiian vacations over the break.) The farthest we went was to Ontario during the summer, when the pandemic was at an ebb, to visit my parents. We also spent our travel fund on the IVF, so even if the pandemic was not an issue, we probably wouldn’t be going too far anyway. At least I have built up numerous travel points on my Visa card.
One of my coping strategies for my inability to go anywhere (even to a restaurant or movie) has been to develop a hyper-focus on the immediate world around me. So I spent a lot of time working on my garden, and I’ve also been learning to learn how to forage local plants. I have been startled to discover just how much food is growing all around me that is not only local, but wild and free for the taking as long as I follow the rules for an Honourable Harvest. I also embarked on a couple of new fermentation projects this year, making amazake for the first time and really stepping up my kombucha game (although I will have to put that on hiatus. All kombucha has a little bit of alcohol, but the stuff in stores has to be below a certain threshold to be sold as a non-alcoholic beverage. With home-brewed kombucha, it’s much harder to track that. So while I’ll drink a storebought kombucha occasionally during my pregnancy, the potential level of alcohol in home-brewed kombucha is too much of an unknown for me.)
6. What would you like to have in 2021 that you lacked in 2020?
I would like to be able to go out with my friends to a restaurant. Such a simple thing, but oh, how I miss it.
7. What date from 2020 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
There is no one date from 2020 that is etched in my memory, because in 2020 time ceased to have all meaning. Every day was just a grey repetition of the previous day, Groundhog Day on repeat. I may sound like I am being melodramatic when I say this, but future readers, look through news articles and social media posts from 2020 and you will see I am not alone in feeling that way.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Getting through the pandemic with my mental health intact, and managing to ensure that Élise’s own mental health was maintained. She had a rough time in the spring when her daycare was closed and she went about four months without seeing any other kids. Philippe and I tried to keep her busy with frequent nature walks and activities, but like many children in 2020, she had far too much screen time. We do have a neighbour up the street, a little boy named Emmett, whom she would have socially distanced playdates with, but when she went back to daycare and met some good friends, I was so relieved.
9. What was your biggest failure?
I didn’t do my job particularly well during the first lockdown. Stuck at home, trying to do my work and parent a three year old at the same time, I dropped balls everywhere. Sometimes I forgot about meetings, sometimes I wasn’t adequately prepared, sometimes I was not as present for Élise as I should have been. I am unhappy about this but I try not to berate myself, because everyone was in the same boat. We had a second lockdown this week, and I was happy to see how much better prepared and organized I was for it. This upcoming week will be tricky because I’m the school librarian for all K-12, and K-6 will be back at school while 7-12 is still virtual. So that’s going to be awkward. For example, secondary teachers are not supposed to be teaching from campus at all, but tomorrow I have a class with Grade 5 and then I have a virtual activity with the Grade 10/11 students immediately after, so I have no choice but to remain on campus to do it.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
So, in October I fell down the stairs in front of the school and sprained my ankle in front of dozens of people. It was raining, my glasses were fogged up because of my mask, and there were decorative plants on the stairs that kept me from grabbing the railing in time. My coworkers were awesome about it. They helped me up and got a wheelchair and took me to the nurse’s office, where they gave me tea and called me a cab. At that point I was feeling pretty burned out and did need a day off, but it’s not the best way to go about getting it.
On the plus side, nobody wanted to go to the Emergency room because of Covid, so that my was fastest visit to Emergency ever. There was only one other patient besides me, and I’d had my X-ray and was out of there in an hour and a half!
In terms of illness or injury, I’m not sure which camp the IVF falls into, but it was difficult. The fertility drugs gave me a bad case of Ovarian Hyper-Stimulation Syndrome, which is when your ovaries swell up to the size of grapefruits, and I ended up with a lot of free fluid in my abdomen. Even before I knew I was pregnant, I was so bloated that I looked six months pregnant already. I couldn’t run or jump, and even walking was uncomfortable. I had to dig the bigger pants that I’d worn after Élise’s birth out of storage. Yesterday was the first day where my body looked sort of normal again and I could fit into my usual pants.
Not to mention that the egg extraction itself, where they vacuum the eggs out of your ovaries so they can fertilize them, is a truly miserable experience. It hurt as much as labour (fortunately it didn’t last as long!). Philippe and I had already decided that if IVF didn’t work, we were going to call it quits on trying to have another kid, but after going through that, I was like, nope, I am never doing that again, even if the money to do another round of IVF fell magically from the sky.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
Hard to say? We bought new raised beds for our garden, and we had the best garden yield we’ve ever had, even though my gardening skills are subpar at best. I also bought a book called Forêt, which is about plants that can be foraged in Quebec, and I’ve had a lot of fun learning to identify things I can eat. It turns out that the little nature trail that I walk on sometimes is like a pantry of edible leaves and berries.
I didn’t technically buy this, but Philippe bought me the pasta-making attachment for my Kitchen-Aid and it is fun! Élise and I spent a whole afternoon making pasta for Emmett’s family and I think it is one of my best memories of time spent with her.
I haven’t technically bought this yet but I have been researching air-fryers, a sure sign that I am about to turn 40 and am now extremely boring. (Although, in my defence, the pandemic has made everyone boring.)
12. Where did most of your money go?
IVF. It’s not covered by provincial insurance, so we spent nearly our entire travel fund on it. And even though my private insurance covered 80% of the cost of the medication, we still had to pay a couple of thousand dollars out of pocket. But money well spent!
13. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
I am very excited to be pregnant!
14. What song will always remind you of 2020?
“Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” was never one of my favourite Christmas songs - I was mostly indifferent to it. But this year I learned that the lyrics you usually hear are not the original lyrics. The original Judy Garland lyrics suit the collective feeling about Covid in December 2020 almost eerily well. For example, the line “From now on our troubles will out of sight” was originally, “Next year all our troubles will out of sight.” “Hang a shining star upon the highest bough” was originally “Until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow.” Apparently when later singers wanted to cover the song, they found these lyrics too depressing and asked for more uplifting rewrites. But I love the original version. They’re small lyrical differences, but they made the song resonate with me this year in a way it never has before.
15. Compared to this time last year, are you:
Happier or sadder - That is a hard question to answer. I have a good life and Covid has not changed that. I didn’t lose my job. My livelihood was never threatened. I am financially secure. I know a few people who caught Covid, but they all recovered. My family and friends are safe. And I am pregnant after years and years of trying.
On the other hand, 2020 was hard. It made it tough to see my friends, to participate in community events, or even to just go to another part of the city. I am not depressed or anything, but there is a grey monotony to life right now.
Older or wiser - I'll repeat word for word what I’ve said for the past seven years: "This question makes no sense to me. I have no choice but to be older, and hopefully a year will never go by that I don't become at least a little bit wiser."
Thinner or fatter? - The number on the scale is the same as last year, but the OHSS made me blow up like a balloon. I can already feel my little pregnancy belly starting.
Richer or poorer? - Richer. We did spend a lot of money on the IVF, but my investments did well and I managed to keep a decent cushion in my savings account, which I usually struggle with. Having a special Christmas account that I contributed $25 into each paycheque helped to keep Christmas expenses manageable and prevented the January dread I used to experience.
16. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Normal things like visiting my family, hanging out with friends, getting to do my job without having to wear a mask. Sitting on a terrace eating delicious food at a beautiful restaurant with good friends and an open bottle of wine. Honestly, that is the post-Covid fantasy I have the most. I hope to experience it sooner rather than later, even if I have to forego the wine.
17. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Feeling rage about the pandemic and the blazing dumpster fire that is life in the United States at the moment, even though I don’t live there.
18. How will you be spending Christmas?
This year I was very focused on ensuring that we had a good Christmas and cherished the season, even if we couldn’t do what we normally do. We did daily devotions during Advent and lit an Advent wreath each day, which helped Élise build anticipation.
We weren’t allowed to cross the Quebec/Ontario border to visit my parents, but my mother-in-law Claire, because she lives alone, was allowed to form a bubble with us. So she came over on Christmas Day to watch Élise open presents, and we ate cinnamon buns with Nutella for breakfast and I roasted a chicken for supper, so it ended up being a good day all told. Claire had to quarantine herself for two weeks afterward, but she said it was worth it.
19. Did you fall in love in 2020?
I just stayed in love with Philippe, who is a wonderful husband and dad as usual.
20. What was your favourite TV program?
I love This Is Us. I love the characters, the storylines, the interactions. I can turn it on knowing that I will be captivated every single time, which is not something I can say about a lot of TV shows.
21. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
I didn’t want to answer this question because I feel like it brings in so much negativity, but I do detest Donald Trump for all the damage he’s cost with his narcissism.
22. What was the best book you read?
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. It’s written by an indigenous botanist who explores how indigenous wisdom and knowledge of plants can heal the destruction in the world. What has actually made me break down and cry while reading the book is her assertion that the Earth loves us and that humans can have a beneficial relationship with the planet. Before I read that, I hadn’t realized that I thought of my very existence (especially as a white person from a settler background) as inherently destructive, and that I did not think the earth had any particular love or fondness for me, despite my many experiences to the contrary. I know now that I was wrong, and that I can take positive steps towards healing the planet, show my love for her, and feel her love for me.
The book has also helped me start to understand how I can integrate my indigenous ancestry into my identity without being appropriative. Over the past year I have learned more about my indigenous ancestors, who belonged to the Kitchespirini tribe, a First Nations group that never received any formal recognition or protection from the Canadian government and so is now a group in danger of disappearing. But I have also learned that just having indigenous ancestry does not make you indigenous - you have to live within the community, and the community has to claim you. I doubt that I will ever be able to live within a Kitchespirini community, but I could make contact with its elders, and I wasn’t sure how to go about that or even if I should.
To be honest, I haven’t sorted that part out, and I recognize that this is something that needs to unfold in its own time. But the book also allowed me to see a path forward. Robin Wall Kimmerer discusses how much damage white settlers have caused to indigenous peoples, but then she asks the question, “Since you are here, how can you live in reciprocity with this land? Can you become naturalized?” The overwhelming generosity of such a question made me cry like a child, that she would offer to share space with the people who stole her own people’s home from them. My genealogy enabled me to discover that I do have centuries of ancestors who lived exactly here, indigenous and European both, so I can naturalize to this soil and express my gratitude for everything it gives me.
23. What was your greatest musical discovery?
A Quebecois musical group called Les Soeurs Boulay. They are two sisters and I love their harmonies.
24. What did you want and get?
Pregnant.
25. What did you want and not get?
I didn’t finish my podcast.
26. What was your favourite film of this year?
What was the last movie I watched? I don’t even know.
27. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 39 on my birthday, but I can’t remember what I did because Covid.
28. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Not having to live in the midst of a global pandemic.
29. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2020?
I actually did a lot better this year, fashion-wise. I bought a number of great dresses and wore them with tights when it got cold. I still need to invest in new shoes, but that will have to wait until lockdown is over.
30. What kept you sane?
Exercise! I didn’t have the same goals and direction as I do when there are races to sign up for, but I made a point of exercising regularly even when it took some creativity to get it done.
31. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I actually don’t have an answer for this this year. I think I was too burned out to think about stuff like that very much.
32. What political issue stirred you the most?
White supremacy. American Christian nationalism. May Trump be banned from ever running again!
33. Whom did you miss?
Um…pretty much everyone!
34. Who was the best new person you met?
My new coworker Taylor, whom I ran into randomly at the fertility clinic. She and I are due a week apart and it’s been huge to have a pregnancy buddy who was already my friend before…
35. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2020:
Patience is the most important quality you can have during a pandemic. Or during infertility. Or during pregnancy. Really I expect that 2020-2023 is going to be one long string of me trying to be as patient as possible (not that I always succeed).
36. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
Let’s get back to that full Judy Garland version of Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.
Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Let your heart be light
Next year all our troubles will be out of sight
Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Make the Yuletide gay
Next year all our troubles will be miles away
Once again as in olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who were near to us
Will be dear to us once more
Someday soon we all will be together
If the Fates allow
Until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now…