I wrote this in a notebook on the 2nd of January (2021) and then packed away the notebook and didn’t find it until many months later, but I love to uphold personal traditions, so here I am, typing it up in November. I learned a lot of hard lessons in 2020, and I worry I might forget.
What I Will Remember from 2020
THE PARTIES
- Going to give a hug to another volunteer at the closing party of Elizabeth Warren’s campaign office in Madison, Wisconsin. The startled look on his face. The way I laughed it off and hugged him anyway. He was older and started worrying about COVID long before anyone else I knew. That memory haunted me the rest of the year.
- Dancing in my living room at my birthday party. The house so full I had a hard time making sure I’d said hello to everyone. Two of my friends bonding over something from their youth and one of them sneaking away to cry in the corner. I checked on her and she said, “I’m fine. I just need a minute.” I thought about all the little private moments at parties. The ones we see and the ones we miss.
- The theme of my party was 2010–2020: Hits of the Decade. I made a playlist with everyone’s favorite songs from the ’10s, but the living room didn’t really become a dance floor until someone put on a Bad Bunny song so new that nobody knew all the lyrics. Then, we were all dancing to Selena in a circle. A White friend of mine laughing nervously, unsure if she was moving her feet correctly. I wanted to say “You are!” The best way to dance to Tejano music is like this: going around and around in a circle, everyone shuffling their feet in the same direction. It’s magic the way you feel your body getting in sync with everyone else’s. Hearts thumping to the same rhythm. Heads nodding to the same beat.
- The music kept changing after that. Cumbias y rancheras from the ‘90s. Los Angeles Azules. I felt myself transported to a party in Mexico –– someone’s wedding, I think. I could imagine the couples dancing, the pre-teen sobrinos giggling on the edge of the dance floor, little kids asleep on chairs that their parents had pushed together as makeshift cots to buy themselves a little more time. Just one more song. Just one more song.
- I thought about the power of music. The way my friend’s bluetooth speaker made this snowy night feel like a memory of home.
- It’s funny, but I don’t remember the cake. It was my birthday, so there had to be cake, right? I do remember saying goodbye as the last guests trickled out and thinking, “More parties. This year we’ll have more parties.”
THE PANDEMIC
- The shame that burned my face and clamped tight around my throat a couple of weeks later when I realized how reckless it had been to have a birthday party at all. Learning terms like “community spread,” “droplet vs. airborne transmission,” “safer at home,” and “together apart.” Becoming convinced that the most important thing was to follow the guidance of public health experts in order to save lives. Remembering that I didn’t always know that I should do this and trying to stay patient while waiting for everyone as privileged as I am to realize that the sacrifices being asked of us were necessary and worthwhile. Waiting. And waiting.
- Learning to be roommates with my mom and Devin as 2 weeks stretched into 5 months and we bickered over how to wash the dishes, what movies to watch next, and how often to eat kale.
- Becoming weirdly fanatical about going on long walks with Chloe the dog and not missing the neighborhood farmers’ market.
- The horror of watching public officials and corporate executives put profits over people’s safety. The horror of realizing that most of us had become numb to mass casualty deaths, even when we could have prevented those deaths.
- Sobbing quietly to Devin, hoping my mom couldn’t hear. Saying over and over, “But I need to see my family. I always go home. That is who I am.” Typing out long messages on the family WhatsApp explaining why we shouldn’t get together and begging all my aunts and cousins to stay apart, even though what I wanted more than anything was to be there, breaking the rules with them.
- The strain of forcing myself to act rationally for nine and a half months.
- Logging out and staying off social media because I couldn’t handle all the restaurant–party–vacation photos interspersed with death announcements and pleas from exhausted doctors and nurses interspersed with anti-vaccine conspiracy theories and unfounded natural cures for COVID.
- Wondering if I was overreacting and checking COVID statistics only to realize that things were even worse than I thought. Again. And again.
- The miracle of realizing that my wish of being a better tía who sees her sobris all the time had come true. Even if it was on Zoom.
- Feeling the giddiness that I only get after throwing a good party after logging off the birthday Zoom for my cousin Alex and how proud I was to have planned it.
- The perspective I gained from the pandemic and how fearless it made me in other parts of my life.
“Want to paddleboard all by yourself on a big lake even though you’re not a very good swimmer?”
“I’m in.”
“Want to learn to drive even though you’ve always been too scared?”
“Yup.”
“Want to lead national Zoom calls to get out the Latinx vote in the election even though you hate public speaking?”
“Definitely.”
- Feeling my home transform into a space station and learning to do everything in one place: “Welcome to my home/office/fitness studio/phone-bank central/classroom/movie theater.” Leaving the house felt like going on a space walk.
- Learning to appreciate in-person human interactions so much that an hour spent in a park with friends felt as luxurious and restorative as a weekend trip.
- The sadness of wanting to hug the people I love and invite them in, instead of standing awkwardly on the porch and sidewalk. Knowing it was the right thing to do but feeling unspeakably cruel.
- Reflecting on how I process information and make decisions and feeling like a scientist for the first time in my life.
- Remembering my January trip to Phoenix and feeling like it was a dream.
- Becoming someone who wears her hair in a ponytail almost every day.
- Knowing what my values and priorities are more clearly than ever before. Trying to be congruent.
- The gift of practicing gratitude.
- Turning to Devin and saying “Can you believe we aren’t sick of each other yet?” and feeling lucky every morning when I realized we’d get to spend another day together.
- Having the best date of my life: walking 3 miles to see Christmas lights in the snow, talking about anything, everything, and nothing. Coming home to our apartment, turning on the twinkle lights, and staying up all night.
- Baking dozens and dozens of different chocolate chip cookies and discovering a cardinal rule for myself: never brown the butter!
- Becoming one of those people who makes dinner with whatever they have in the kitchen.
- Watching my first live-streamed funeral and wishing it would be my last.
- Feeling older and younger than ever before.
I started the year by watching a TV show that made something click for me. I decided I wanted to be a confident woman like the one I saw on my screen. Realizing how few examples I regularly see of confident women in pop culture, I decided to seek them out. I listened to 
smoothliminal 