2020, do your worst!

Hey, y'all. Good Morning.

It is now November of 2020. If you told me, "I need you to give a summary of everything that happened this year," I don't think I could accurately recall everything that happened. I laugh at myself now trying to do it in my head. Coronavirus, lock-down, killer bees, Kobe, the presidential campaign from hell... etc.

Coffee break.

(Sometimes when I don't like the flavor of my coffee I just chug it as fast as I can. That is what I am doing now. Does anyone else do that?)

That isn't quite all that happened this year though. I guess on a general, "here-is-what-everyone-experienced", basis that could be a spotty but mostly accurate summary. But really if someone could ask me what happened to me in 2020, I guess this is what I would tell them...

In January of 2020, I met the sweetest boy. (The love interest of most stories doesn't come in until at least halfway through the story but that's how this year happened.) We met at the most inconvenient but perfect time; neither of us were looking for anyone and we bumped into each other. I left my home to go back to school but we couldn't seem to forget about each-other as we agreed to do. We started a long-distance relationship and tried not to let the distance between us hinder our growing relationship.

Spring semester marched on. I was drowning. I couldn't focus. My mind was a mess. I had not figured out how to do college yet, at all. The previous fall semester really hurt my confidence. Double majoring in science and education did not bode well for the college student who had never taken a physics class and was thrown into astrophysics by a less than understanding and helpful course advisor. Although I had promised myself to never give up, at this point in the spring semester, it seemed I already had.

Corona-virus hit in March and we were not allowed to come back for classes. There was lots of confusion and disagreements politically during this time, but I honestly don't know how anyone would have handled the mystery any better or any more knowledgeably. Lockdowns and curfews, how were we to know what would be the best help?

But here I was, locked to a certain area, quarantined with my thoughts and my homework at my family's farm. The next few months were the most challenging of my life. Little sleep, make breakfast, work on chores, help with lunch, study, work outside, make supper, study more, go to sleep way too late. I really struggled with my relationship with myself and everyone around me at this point. I couldn't see my friends from Auburn, I couldn't spend quality time with my boyfriend, I didn't have a teacher, in person, to keep me accountable and help me learn, and probably the hardest of all, I felt disconnected from the place and the people I used to love and call home.

I guess it's funny how in high school you can't imagine a world without certain people in it. You see and talk to the same people every day. You are in clubs and bands and you are a part of something bigger than just you, but you feel important. It wouldn't feel or be the same if I wasn't here, a part of it all... right? That's the punchline. Cause you won't be there forever, at least I wasn't going to be. I felt lucky to get out of my town and find an opportunity elsewhere. I sang about my excitement in front of the largest crowd I had ever had sit at my feet on graduation night.

During my time at home this quarantine, that song was just a bad after-taste in my mouth. The words I had sung, that they had cheered for, they were just haunting chants. How had it only been a year ago when I and those friends had been so devoted to one another? How had the time flown so quickly for me to be brushed away like dust out of their lives? I was angry. I felt betrayed. Why?

The home town I once was a part of, continued to move the exact same way. It walked right past me. It ignored me altogether. The friends and the people I once knew and still loved did the same type of things. And the lie I sealed the truth with, that they just didn't know I was home or they just didn't know I was available, started to peel away like old, poorly applied paint. I asked God to help me understand why they weren't excited to see me like I was excited to see them. I still don't fully understand that.

Something pulled me through that, and God-knows it wasn't anything He hadn't already placed in me. Underneath my internal thrashing sea of grief and anger, a steady beat was always there. Slowly, it was revealed to me. The Lord held me tight to Himself and made me listen. And what I heard was that steady beat.

The word grit comes to mind thinking of late spring and summer of 2020. That one of the only things I still had to my name. Looking back, having not much, only grit is the thing that brought me here.

I had to get organized, and I mean quick, fast, and in a hurry. I taught myself to study and learn on my own motivation and I better had done it right. I had to learn to invest in myself and invest in the relationships that God had graced me with. During the summer there was a whole month where I couldn't see my boyfriend at all (yes, he is still apart of this story. Sorry Jake, you will get your time in the spotlight.) Our growing relationship seemed to be in troubled waters but it didn't stop getting stronger.

I didn't stop getting stronger. I worked hard. Physically, I was strong. My body was healthy and more muscular than it had been in a few years. It better had been. I learned once again who God had made. Grit pulsed under the crashing waves. I couldn't quite grasp its gravity yet.

But after those 6 months ( a little more, a little less) I found my way back to the plains. I thank God every day I am here. He let me come back but I had to work for it. I am still working on it.

So where are we now? Let's just narrow it down to the fall semester. I've come back to Auburn. I put my new skills to the test and I try to join the job market. I turn down some job offers and some jobs turn down me. God said wait.

About a week before classes begin, I call the place I wanted to get hired at the most. A downtown job, great pay, and great opportunity for experience. I ask for an interview and they fortunately just had the person I was replacing left. They hired me for my experience I had learned over the summer, Social Media Coordination. I started the next day!

I started taking classes. I didn't have that many but my foreign language class was rough from the start. Online school was hard enough but teaching myself a language was exceptionally hard. I was thankful to get to go to the football games though! Living near campus has always been fun but now I was never going on campus. I wasn't going anywhere most days except to work.

If 2020 could get worse, it did. I truly started gaining "quarantine weight" around the same time I was really getting into work and school stress. Seriously, I was gaining a lot of weight. So I started working out, and man was that tough. I still had quite a bit of strength that I had built up over the summer from working on the farm (tossing 80 lbs. bags like a boss), but my stamina was gone. Poof. So I start running. I forgot how much I hated to run.

I think the craziest part of the whole year was this moment.

I was working non-stop, keeping up with chores (as best as I could), making content and assisting at work, learning and meeting deadlines at school, growing a relationship with my boyfriend, trying to find time to visit home, and also desperately trying to get back into a healthy routine with my eating and activity level.

It was crazy because, at this moment, all of 2020 was worth it. It had a purpose.

I had learned to be organized. I had learned to be strong. I had dealt with hard people and things. I had learned to be patient, to enter arguments with love, humility, and grace from my very sweet boyfriend. I had learned skills and learned how to keep learning new skills. I had self-forgiveness. 2020 tried it's best to tear us all down, but the number one thing 2020 gave me was growth.

Now I know a year has no mental capacity. But 2020 was out to get us. Survival of the fittest. Fittest meaning those with the ability to hope, have faith and foresight, or just push through blindly.

That is pretty interesting to me. If I were to look at Amber on January 1st of 2020, I wouldn't describe her as truly having those attributes. She definitely wanted to have them. But not yet. 2020 may not have had intentions for what I went through but God certainly did.

To sum it up 2020 is my year of growth.

So now as the year starts drawing toward the end, and many of you may be fearful of what could be in store, I encourage you to look at what this year has made you become.

Who were you at the beginning?

What did you go through?

Who are you now?

I don't know, maybe your outlook of the year will change. And instead of being afraid of these last few days, you can say with me, "2020, do your worst!"

or "2020, hit me with your best shot"

or even, "2020 do you feel lucky? Well, do you punk?"

"2020, dead or alive, you are coming with me!"

"2020, say hello to my little friend"

"I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick 2020's butt… and I’m all out of bubblegum."

Okay, I'm done.

Bye.