There’s so much significance placed on the number 2020. We all know the phrase “Hindsight is 20/20”, which inspires humility, patience, open-mindedness – all that good stuff. It’s also a very pretty number. The idealistic ones among us were determined to make 2020 an unforgettable, transformative year, and it certainly delivered. Unfortunately, since we cannot control our circumstances, 2020 most likely did not deliver in the ways we wanted.
New Year’s Resolutions unattempted, trips cancelled, milestone events celebrated remotely or canned completely, 1990s’ babies denied a 30th birthday party worthy of the ‘gram. For me, it was supposed to be a stargazing, ski trip to New Zealand. Instead, I found myself moving back in with my family (sort of), and the money meant for the trip went to a funeral.
For the first six or seven months of this year, I was coming to terms with how fortunate I really was, given the circumstances. I never would have thought I’d be living through a global pandemic in my lifetime. Without venturing into humblebrag territory, I’ll just say that because of secure employment, I had enough to keep me safe and comfortable, and also I was indulging way too often and in too many ways. For one, I think many of us have (re)discovered that instant serotonin hit one gets when they confirm an online order. When I wasn’t indulging, I was mulling over the trajectory of my life and who I’d become, especially around the time of my 28th birthday.
When I first moved to Sydney, I’d felt like a fish out of water, so it became a surreal sort of experiment when, from July, I was living with my family again. I was back in my old fish tank, only I had mutated into a different species. While my family’s living situation looks a little different these days, they will always feel like home to me, sometimes frustratingly so. Part of the reason I enjoy travelling is because it takes me away from familiar faces and places. This was the opposite of what I’d planned.
I’d only intended to stay for a week to attend family matters, but five days into my visit, the border between Queensland and New South Wales grew complicated. In short, I could return to NSW just fine, but I couldn’t fly back to QLD without difficulty. The COVID-19 hotline advised me to stay put in QLD in order to avoid that situation, given my circumstance.
It was a grim feeling, knowing my time in QLD was dependent on either the border restrictions relaxing or my dad dying. The former came first, but by that time, my dad’s health had deteriorated to a point that it was best to stay put. I cannot imagine the pain I would have endured if he’d passed while I was far away, unable to see him in the days prior, or see his body the day of.
I’d never experienced grief before. It’s commonly characterized as pain which I’ve found is too broad. If I had to be more specific – and maybe it always is more specific when it’s the death of one’s parent – but it feels wrong. It feels like losing a part of yourself. No matter how well or how badly that part of yourself served you in your lifetime, when something so foundational vanishes like a vapor, it feels amiss. It was at random moments that the pain came, such as when realising my phone would never display new notifications from him again.
It’s almost a burden to know that he loved my brother and I because it was as though our love for him was his last remaining life rafter to which he was clinging. I’m so relieved I spoke to him over the phone just hours before he died. On the other hand, it haunts me that he kept saying he really needed a miracle, because I know that miracle never came.
Gratitude comes in the moments when I remember I am one of the lucky ones this year, in that I got to say goodbye to a loved one without requiring a Zoom call nor social distancing. I am grateful to have an employer which allows me to work remotely from an entirely different state, plus all the time off I wanted. I am grateful to have had this surreal respite from “normal life” to spend some time with my family, which is honestly something I didn’t know I needed, even before my dad passed away.
While I am due to return to Sydney in January, this is the longest I’ve been home since I moved out ten years ago. Back then, I didn’t have a strong sense of family values and/or trust in men, which could largely (but not entirely) be attributed to my dad’s strange mixture of aloofness and short of temper. I was more interested in curating a found family than embracing my biological one, so the more distance between myself and home, the better. For the first couple of years, I even stubbornly insisted to myself that my home was Sydney. This made my Youth Allowance payments extremely low because Centrelink was under the impression that I was still “living at home”, since I’d maintained as such on the application.
My attitude has shifted over the years, albeit at a glacial pace, and is still nowhere it needs to be, but this Brisbane visit-turned-momentary-homecoming has seen me grow closer to my family, and more sympathetic to my dad. I will not whitewash his past behaviour, but I no longer want to use daddy issues as a crutch to justify my negative habits and behaviours, especially as I find myself occasionally exhibiting a similar sort of aloofness and short of temper. This part of me wants to hurry back to the freedom of Sydney because I find it uneasy to closely scrutinise my values and how they may not be serving me while I remain in this proverbial petri dish.
In a way, I’ve been institutionalised since I’ve been back home. I’m a big baby who doesn’t drive so I’m largely confined to this house full of memories – like a poster I created in Year 12 art class which, when not forced into my peripheral vision, has been a constant reminder of how I peaked artistically at 17. Being thrown back into the old fish tank while having become a different species is jarring, but I can’t help but use that time and space to reflect on myself and my relationship with my family, particularly my dad – although the thoughts arrive whether I’m ready for them or not. Not to mention, I’ve found that a three-year-old, five-year-old, and an old lady puppy dog with two fragile and expensive legs are by far the most inspiring housemates I’ve ever had, and they have certainly drawn me out of my comfort zone.
I don’t think there is a single person who is ending this year the same person they were when it began. This year forced us to adapt or held up a mirror to who we are, particularly how selfish we can be. It’s probably too early to determine whether this year has changed me fundamentally at all, but there’s a part of me that keeps coming back to the word “gratitude” when it never resonated with me in the past. It recontextualizes my thoughts and attitudes in a way that seems so anomalous to how they are usually, but by no means is it a disagreeable thing. Holding onto that word, that feeling, aided me through the worst parts of this year, and I will still need it if I am determined to move on.
No vacation was ever going to change me. It’s my home, my family, and all the ups and downs that come with them that gives me the means to grow. That’s what I resolve to do every New Year’s Eve: to be a “happy, successful person” in the new year, only I keep trying external means like travelling, a new job, even a new haircut, to achieve it. Self-actualisation can’t be achieved without gratitude nor humility, and what’s a more humbling experience than grief? You are shattered to pieces, but you can put yourself back together again and in a better way, if you’re committed to figuring out how. That’s an expedition in and of itself. Franz Josef Glacier can wait.
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