Let’s just start this year in review off by saying that I haven’t really written anything of substance since last January 1, so I apologize in advance if the quality is lower than usual. I also apologize up front because this is going to be less eloquent than usual as well. I know it’s going to because that is just where my mind is at right now. I always intend these posts to be written as if I’m giving an unprepared speech so I never rewrite after the post is done, I simply edit for grammar.
In all honesty, I don’t want to spend the time to write this to the level that I normally do. Like almost everything else this year, my heart just isn’t in it. But I will do my best.
2020 in Summary
Events
COVID happened. That’s it. That’s the year.
Yes, technically we were able to do PAX South and East before all this happened, and I am super grateful for that, but the entire rest of the year has been so dominated by the fact that we can’t do anything fun anymore that those things might as well have been in 2019. Time has gotten so warped for me that my brain is almost convinced they didn’t even happen.
I find nothing to be happy about this year. I have been stuck in the same 2 square miles of land for over nine months. I have not stepped inside of a subway car for over nine months. I have not visited a single restaurant for over nine months. Aside from my wife I have seen, with my eyes, exactly five people I personally know, for less than a minute each, over the last nine months.
It fucking sucks. And I hate it. And I hate that there are so many people who don’t care.
I know that I will look back on all this and be happy that I did literally everything I could to not spread this disease and try to support those who don’t have the luxury of being able to work from home. But right now, when we are losing thousands of people every single day, it feels very thankless to isolate ourselves so much.
By the time this is all over, my wife and I will have spent over half of the time we’ve lived here in quarantine, and I don’t really have words to express how depressing that is.
Work
My opinion of my place of work has not gotten any better since last year. The culture was toxic then and it’s possibly even worse now. Aside from the constant finger-pointing of why nothing seems to get done correctly, now we are also dealing with lots of people quitting (due to the toxicity) during quarantine with no replacements, yet we are still expected to deliver at the same pace as if the world wasn’t on fire. I also firmly believe that our executive team is convinced that people should be happy to work more hours because it’s not like we have anything better to do.
Again, I have no concerns about where I stand in the company, but I’ve long been at that point where I honestly don’t care about what happens. The only reason I haven’t followed the smart people out of the door is that we need the benefits, and I don’t really know where else I would go right now. I generally only make job changes when I’m looking to grow, and right now I’m just surviving.
Home
It’s where we are 24/7 now. This year has made me so happy with the choice I made last year in where we live because it has made the surviving part as easy as it could be. It would’ve been easy to trade space and comfort at home for a better location or cheaper rent that would allow more time to be spent outside the house. I remember it being a distinct selling point of “you’re gonna live in NYC now, you won’t spend that much time at home anyway,” and I’m glad I didn’t listen to that.
That being said, I never fully appreciated just how important having a commute was to me. Certainly I get just as annoyed when the train or bus is late, or full, or just doesn’t show up at all, and you always have to be wary of certain people. But I miss it so much, and not having it has taken a direct toll on my physical and mental well being. Going for walks just isn’t the same because the destination is always the same. Home doesn’t feel like home anymore when that’s all there is. I need that change in scenery.
And what really sucks about having this extra time at home is that I didn’t use that extra time for much. Similar to last year, the stress of work and not being able to go anywhere compounded into giving me no motivation to do anything, even the things I enjoy.
Health
The last few sections all culminate into this one, which has really been my struggle this year. Looking back on last year’s review I was already on a bad trend and I noted that if things didn’t improve I would likely burnout or worse.
Well, despite not getting COVID, I ended up in the ER twice this year due to panic attacks. Now I didn’t know at the time that that’s what they were, having never experienced them. I just knew that my heart was going crazy and my body was shutting down, and with my family’s history of heart-related diseases I knew I had to get it looked at. But after those visits and working with a cardiologist, I now know that all I actually have is high blood pressure and a lot of stress.
And it’s like, okay, what can I do about it then? As I already mentioned, I’m stuck inside all day and I have a stressful job. And that’s just the way it has to be right now because not being careful is not an option and not having a job would be even more stressful. The one thing I was able to figure out is that a lot of my fatigue and headaches were actually caused by dehydration, so upping my water intake has helped a lot. Being sedentary and stressed still counts for all my other problems though.
So, I’m just doing what I can for now. Taking advantage of the days where I’m feeling decent and just accepting that some days I’m going to feel like crap and just get through it. Try to get some amount of walking or biking in each day. I know that I need to limit my screen time as well but, again, super hard to do when there’s nothing else to do.
At this point, I’ll just be happy if I can avoid the hospital again for a year. Any other improvements would just be icing.
Favorite Games
Final Fantasy VII Remake - I feel like I was destined to love this game since I’m a FF fanboy and I have a lot of nostalgia in particular for the original FF7, but even I was a little surprised at why I ended up loving this remake. First, the battle system is a blast, so much more satisfying than FFXV that I played last year and has jumped up to my favorite battle system in any FF game to date. It reminds me of everything I love about FFXIII’s system but with direct control and better customization. Second, I appreciated the fleshing out of the Midgar world and the characters you meet in the early game. The other members of Avalanche are actually worth caring about and the aftermath of the pillar sequence feels so much more impactful. I also like the way the story has been modified to keep the spirit of the original but allow for a different path through the two upcoming games. I wasn’t expecting to like this game as much as I did and I very much look forward to the next one, whenever that ends up being.
Hades - This is another example of a game where I expected to like it, but I became obsessed with it for several weeks, and it ended up as my favorite game of the year. Technically I’m not done with it yet, as I consider it full complete on getting every item and I’m still one companion short of that, but I’ve full-cleared the story and epilogue so it’s close enough. So many things have been said about it but for me it comes down to fun gameplay and a sublime soundtrack. I’ve been a fan of Darren Korb’s stuff since Bastion, and the Transistor OST is in my top 3 soundtracks ever, and the Hades soundtrack has quickly become a favorite as well. Combine those things with some great art, enjoyable characters, and a bunch of collectibles and you get a game I’ve sunk 100 hours into and plan to continue for a while yet.
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past Randomizer - This is a little bit of a cop out since it is obviously a very old game that I’ve played many times throughout my life, but this year I got really into the randomizer and the community around it. I think in terms of pure hours, this outranked every other game I played this year. Lots of casual playing, some co-op play with a couple friends, and eventually I got into competitive playing where I’m racing other players and actively trying to get better at the game. It’s been a great way of giving new life to my all-time favorite game.
1846/1817 - I’ve never put board games in the yearly review before, mostly because I never kept track of what I played, but I started doing it this year so I want to include these. Both 1846 and 1817 are among dozens of games that constitute the 18xx series of train board games. These are games that I’ve heard of for a long time but never dipped into until this year thanks to the 18xx.games website coming into existence, coupled with not being able to play games in person with friends. We’ve played dozens of games this way and of the ones I’ve played so far 1846 and 1817 stand out as my favorite ones. I have yet to actually win a game because the friends I play with have a lot more experience and these are the kinds of games where just one mistake can ruin your chance of winning, but I’m constantly learning and getting better. I think in any other year (with 3-4 PAXs) some other board games would be here instead, but these have defined my entire board gaming this year so I had to mention them.
Favorite Movies/TV Shows
I don’t have anything to list here because I’ve only seen 7 movies or TV shows that I hadn’t seen before, and none of them are strong enough to be listed as a favorite of mine. This just wasn’t a good year for new media for me, it was a year of going back to old comforts, and the vast, vast majority of my time was watching Youtube or Twitch because they’re mindless and provided a lot of much-needed social interaction for me. There are a couple things we are currently working through that might’ve made the list but we haven’t completed them so they don’t count.
Favorite Books
Sandman - Much like with TV, I didn’t get a lot of books done this year because reading just wasn’t something I wanted to do most days. I also kept picking disappointing books in the early part of the year, so I eventually tried to make a shift by going with a known classic, finally reading the entire Sandman omnibus, and I was definitely not disappointed. It still probably wasn’t the story I needed at the time, the darkness of the pandemic made a lot of it difficult to enjoy, but it still holds up very well for something that’s 30 years old now, and there are a lot of sections that I will likely remember and reference for a long time to come. Which is really the best thing you can say about great art.
Goals
I’m not going to spend that much time on reviewing last year’s goals because no one could have predicted what was going to happen, so I think it is unreasonable to hold myself accountable for things outside my control. Much more important to look forward at this point.
Health Comes First - To be fair, I was doing a good job of this until quarantine started. I adjusted really poorly to being home-bound so I not only lost all the progress I had made but, as mentioned above, things got even worse. Having those medical scares did force me to pay more attention to it though so I’m doing better now than I was mid-year, but there is plenty more work to be done.
Less Isolation - Heh. Yeah, nothing I could do about this one. “Let’s spend less time in my office” turns into “well guess I’m spending at least 9-10 hours in my office every day now.” And not being able to see friends also makes it impossible to get away. So yeah, I had absolutely no control over this one, and as such I’m not going to be hard on myself for not putting more effort into it.
Schedule Weekly Blocks - Didn’t do this at all. Don’t really care either in all honesty. Again, hard to care about working on projects when you’re constantly in survival mode.
Accept and Push Forward - Still not good at this either. If anything I dwelled on things even more this year than I normally do because I was too miserable physically most of the year to do anything else. The point of this was to stop hesitating and just do things more often and I overall did less this year than any year I can remember, despite being at home all the time. I really was just in bad shape too often, but I know it’s something I still need to work on.
In terms of what I plan to do this coming year, I already know that quarantine is going to continue for a long while, so the goals are going to be simple and focused on making isolation easier rather than productive. If I can manage to get myself into a place where I am more productive, great, but let’s just focus on getting through this year without anything else bad happening.
Be More Responsible
Also known as, more adulting. Without the need to go out and be presentable or host people, we have been very bad at basic maintenance of the apartment and ourselves. So I want to make it a goal to just be better at doing things we need to do before leisure time. I know it has been particularly difficult on weekdays after work when I’m drained from stress, but it’s not going to get easier for a while. So I just need to do it.
I think the side benefit of this is that by just getting the things done, I will feel less guilty about my leisure time. As it is I hesitate on what I should do on a daily basis because I know there are things I need to do but would rather do something fun, so I end up doing neither (basically the Accept and Push Forward problem). If I just get the things I need to do done, then no more guilt.
Get to 200
Another year, another weight loss goal. I’m not going to dwell on this one at all since it has been a consistent thing for several years at this point, but I’m going to go ahead and put the specific number because it might help as a motivating factor. And where I’m at right now this is only 20 pounds to lose, which should be very doable in 12 months. Plus it’s part of my medical treatment for high blood pressure, so there’s additional incentive to do it this year.
More Active Media
It’s kind of funny to have a goal around actually consuming more media rather than trying to be productive, but looking at what I did this year compared to previous years, I just spent way too much time on passive media (namely Twitch and Youtube). So when I say active media, I mean that I should be spending my free time actually watching new TV and movies, playing more board games, and reading more books. Things that actually provide some kind of value. Not to say that all TV and books are valuable, but watching Twitch is like watching the news everyday, it doesn’t matter much a few days later. Media that requires active attention and is designed to be remembered and talked about is what I should be doing in my free time. I think there is still a time and place for the more ephemeral content of Twitch and Youtube, but I don’t need it to be my main form of media.
Hopefully Not More of the Same?
That’s the best I can hope for with 2021. I would like to think that 2020 will end up being the worst year most of us ever see in our adult lives, and that 2021 can only be better, but we will honestly have to see if that comes true. Lots of people are fighting to make it better but there are just as many people determined to make it worse. I know I’m going to keep working to make it better in the ways that I can, and I hope that I can come out of this pandemic with even more patience and empathy than I started with.
Let’s have a better review in a year, yeah?