Welcome to the end of 2020. I debated even doing one of these posts, and breaking my four-year streak, because who wants to remember 2020, right? But I’m trying to get myself out of the mindset that 2020 should be a write-off.

As the 11th Doctor puts it, “The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good things don't always soften the bad things, but vice versa, the bad things don't always spoil the good things or make them unimportant.”

So here you go: the year 2020, the year of the pandemic, of neighborhood walks and outdoor picnics with friends, of Zoom Christmas and birthdays and just about everything else, of working from home and getting all the cat cuddles, of reading books for fun again and rewatching Avatar the Last Airbender three times and creating elaborate escape-room-style scavenger hunts for Ryan, of love and grace and resilience, despite it all being too much.

January

1. I launched Planting Threads, my custom embroidery Etsy business.

2 & 3. We got the high school squad back together for a dinner, complete with this giant slice of cake.

4. I did a reading and Q&A about young adult literature alongside one of my professors, Geoff Herbach, and one of my MFA cohort, Natalie Martell, at the library in Mankato.

February

1. -39 degrees wind chill. Just another day in Mankato.

2. I spent most of my free time in February embroidering my favorite quotes, including this one from Lord of the Rings.

3. I drove back to Kentucky for what ended up being my only bridal shower (due to COVID).

4. While I was home, I caught these two napping in the same posture.

March

1. At the beginning of March, I went to San Antonio, TX, for the AWP conference. Concerns were rising about COVID and many of the speakers pulled out at the last minute, so we spent a lot of time exploring the city instead. (Read about that trip here.)

2. The iconic Spoonbridge in Minneapolis, which Kayla and I visited after I returned from Texas.

3. My friend Liz and I went to California for a week for Spring Break. About halfway through the trip, MSU extended Spring Break to two weeks to give professors enough time to implement online classes the rest of the semester, and Italy went into national lockdown. (Read about our hikes around Santa Cruz here.)

4. Upon returning to Minnesota, I quarantined (did not leave my apartment, even for groceries) for two weeks. This picture was taken the first time Kayla and I stepped into the outside world for a walk around Linnaeus Arboretum in St. Peter.

April

1 & 2. One side effect of the stay-at-home orders was my and Liz’s thesis reading was canceled. Instead, we livestreamed it, which worked out surprisingly well.

3. It wouldn’t be Minnesota without a solid April snowstorm.

4. A walk in a deserted park.

May

1. I moved back to Kentucky earlier than planned because ~ depression ~ and doesn’t this view on our daily walk just give you life?

2. Took lots of naps and cuddled with my dogs. Tinkerbell passed away this month, so I’m glad I got a little extra time with her this summer.

3. Argos thinks he’s a lap dog.

4. We started taking walks around the neighborhood to stave off the cabin fever, and one day, we ran into these gorgeous horses.

June

1. Pretty sure I was outside more this summer than any other summer of adulthood. Partly because of Minnesota-induced vitamin D deficiency, partly because I was technically unemployed (meaning only freelancing) for the first time since I was seventeen, and partly because I wanted to be slightly tan for my wedding. This was at Creation Falls in Red River Gorge.

2. Ryan graduated and officially (well officially when he passed the PANCE) became a PA-C.

3. The aftermath of washing and brushing the dogs. Look closely, that’s all just hair. (Tinkerbell for scale.)

4. Ryan and I hiked Bison Way at the Gorge to recreate the photo we took when he proposed there in 2017.

July

1. Buying my wedding bouquet, farmer’s-market-during-a-pandemic style.

2. July 11, 2020: Ryan and I got married! We completely re-planned the wedding once we realized the pandemic wasn’t going away, relocated it to a cabin at Red River Gorge, and only had our wedding parties and immediate (household) families there. We definitely missed a lot of people whom we wished could’ve been there, but it was a beautiful day to start our married life! Fingers crossed we’re all vaccinated by this July so wedding part two can happen.

3. Francis came into our lives! He was Ryan’s big wedding present from me, and I managed to pull off this gift as a total surprise. The sibling of two of my friends was caring for feral kittens, so I picked Francis out, then after the wedding, got Ryan to drive us to Louisville to see his grandmother and (as a ruse) to have lunch with the two friends. When we handed baby Francis to Ryan, he didn’t believe we were actually adopting him.

4. We took a brief trip to Shenandoah National Park as a sort of placeholder honeymoon, since (sigh) our big trip to Spain was canceled by COVID. (Read about our trip to Shenandoah here.)

August

1, 2, 3, & 4. Literally all I did in August was cuddle with the cats. I started my PhD in English Literature program at the University of Kentucky and my TA-ship at UK (all virtual), and Francis liked to nap in my lap all day while I Zoomed and typed on my laptop. I also started my adjunct teaching position at Bluegrass Community & Technical College in Danville, which was in-person on Mondays, meaning I had one day of the week I could actually leave the house with good reason.

September

1. More Francis cuteness.

2. I drove back to Minnesota (even though I swore I would never return L O L) to see my friend/eternal roommate Kayla do a virtual reading for her Andreas Residency at MSU.

3. We also went to Minneapolis and walked by the lake, saw a magical otter in said lake, and ate amazing vegan food.

4. Oh look, I’m back to cuddling with cats. Incidentally, this was the day before I turned 25.

October

1. My friend Caroline got me the coolest birthday present of a chat/picture with Marie Lu, one of my all-time favorite authors.

2. Ryan and I baked pies (and I made a ~ hilarious ~ Great British Bake Off joke on mine).

3. Ryan’s pumpkin accurately describes my feelings about 2020.

4. I got to meet my friend Mary’s adorable puppy, August!

November

1 & 2. All I did in November was hike. Not mad about it. This was Double Arch in the Gorge.

3 & 4. Copperas Falls in the Gorge. Shortly after this, I also Mulan-ed all my hair off in the middle of the night. If there’s one thing 2020 has taught me, it’s that you should just cut your hair yourself whenever you feel like it because it’s just hair.

December

1. Ryan, my brother, and I drove to Cumberland Falls for (you guessed it) more hiking, and we ran into this creepy ghost town in the middle of the woods. (Read about our hike here.)

2. Eagle Falls in Cumberland Falls State Park.

3. Francis posing in front of our Christmas tree.

4. We had the first white Christmas I can remember since childhood! Luna and Argos were obsessed and are now very sad that it’s gotten back up into the 50’s.

All in all, in reflecting on 2020, my year has been marked by disappointment and fear like many, many other people’s. We lost Tinkerbell, who’d been a member of our family for 18 years, and we had a scary week with one of Ryan’s parents in the hospital with COVID pneumonia. We faced changed plans—my thesis reading shifted to a virtual format, my graduation canceled, the plans for our wedding that had been three years in the making completely thrown out, my PhD program and part of my teaching switched to online, jobs for Ryan in short supply, and many other unforeseen complications. It’s been difficult to have finally moved back to Kentucky but still be unable to see friends. Not to mention the anxiety when you do see people in person—the questions of, what does this person consider safe? do they always wear a mask? are they going to think I’m crazy for wanting to eat outside? am I making the right decision? This year has revealed rifts in relationships, often rooted in differing perspectives on inconvenience for the common good vs. individual rights, and I find myself asking, will I ever be able to see these people in the same way again?

Of course, there have also been moments of hope and light: finally getting married, cuddling with our cats and dogs, hiking during a Kentucky fall again, waking up to the news Biden had won the election (about fifteen different times), hitting submit on my 60+ pages of final seminar papers, Ryan getting (round one of) the COVID vaccine.

Recently, I made Ryan watch Frozen 2 for his first time, and this quote stuck out to me as a good way to live in 2021: “When one can see no future, all one can do is the next right thing.”

Keep up the fight. Keep doing the next right thing. And the world will be a better place for it.