No, don’t worry this isn’t another Covid post. This is far more indulgent. This is all about my personal year. The things that have given me joy and the things that have saddened me. When I’ve laughed, when I’ve cried. My successes and my failures.

I shall start if I may, at Christmas Day 2020. A long awaited day following a year of lockdowns. A day everyone in the country had prepared for with utmost precision. It, along with four other days, were to be our release from lockdown. A time to see family and friends. A reward for staying locked away and breaking the viruses hold on society, but it was not to be. Not everyone had obeyed the rules, the virus was spreading at alarming rates and our precious five days of Christmas were taken from us.

There seemed little point in switching on the Christmas lights, no need to put that last order into the supermarket. Everyone was spending Christmas in there own bubble. Presents were dropped on doorsteps, conversations took place through window panes and I was left with a huge turkey, 2 lobsters and numerous crab claws to cook and split between 3 families. To be fair this did take up most of Christmas Eve, so at least my mind was occupied. A darling relative set all of us up on his zoom account and that is how we spent Christmas day, with phones and tablets taped to kitchen cupboards. Chatting and laughing, making the most of what had threatened to be the worst day of the year. Being just the two of us we didn’t have the full roast dinner, just picked at cold cuts.

It was about 3pm, everyone had drifted off zoom to do their own thing, he was asleep and I, for the very first time in my life was alone on Christmas Day. It was now that I made a very bad decision. I started to watch the previous nights carol concert. Without fail it always makes me nostalgic for how my life was growing up. I was brought up in the church. I was head chorister. It was a simple, carefree life, full of like minded people and friends. Of thinking and caring for others, being involved in a community, knowing practically everyone in the neighbourhood. Did I appreciate it? No of course I didn’t, I constantly fought against what I considered to be draconian rules and the petty punishments I was given for breaking them. I was the perfect rebel without a cause. I wasted what were perfect years, threw away any chance of belonging anywhere for a life of anonymity in the city. To this day I still don’t feel I belong anywhere. I have been gone too long from my hometown to call it home anymore. The few people left who knew me only remember an out of control teenager, they don’t know the woman I have become.

The woman who now shuns the bright lights, the hustle and bustle of the city. The constant need to look her best, to shine, to stand out and be noticed. For years I was a business owner, I could have whatever I wanted, nothing mattered though, nothing meant anything. It was all throwaway. A very wasteful life. I have done with rebelling, I now crave the simple things, the things I had, but didn’t appreciate. The friends I had, but left behind as I thought them boring. The people I took for granted. Now more than ever, as I sat listening to the choir sing, I wanted one person. Someone blissfully unaware of what they meant to me, what they still mean to me. Someone who recently came back into my life in a big way. Someone I want, need even in my life, but I know I can’t have.

Yet again this is me not being satisfied with what I have, always wanting something else. This time though, there are more sinister undertones. This is my life catching up with me. This is fate showing me what I could have had, had I not forsaken my way of life and started worshipping at the altar of greed and falsehood. My afternoons viewing had brought back memories, both good and bad. Sitting there by myself, reflecting on the past, had made me face up to a few home truths. As the saying goes, ignorance is bliss, but I no longer was ignorant, I knew exactly what I had thrown away and I was sad.

I was still sad a few hours later, after I’d tided away the dishes and frozen most of the food, when a message pinged through on WhatsApp……………to be continued.