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What just happened? A 2020 recap

Nicole Santi

Wrapping up 2020

It is such a weird concept to me. 2020. And now here we are at the end of it. This year has been the craziest yet. Never in my wildest dreams did I think our country would find itself in the middle of a pandemic. On lock down with so much unknown. Panic setting in only to lead to a toilet paper shortage?!?! 

When it all started happening I was terrified. Not so much of the virus but not knowing, and not feeling safe. It definitely pulled me out of my bubble. Not enough for me to hoard toilet paper, but with covid came something unexpected. It brought my family closer together. After being on lock down with nowhere to go and no one to see, I would take my kids for drives. My 4 year old son would beg me to not go home. “Let’s go find an abandoned home we can explore, there won’t be any virus there” he would say. My heart broke. There was nowhere to take them. Everything was closed. My husband had a really great idea. Let's take the kids to your parents' property down south, he says. They have 22 acres of undeveloped land next to the Shawnee National forest. My uncle owns the 8 next to them with a pole barn on his property. Nothing luxurious but it has a water hook up. So we packed our family, our two dogs, and our camping gear. Unbeknownst to us we were about to have the best trip we have taken yet.

Down there, as a family we hiked new terrain, us and the kids doing a 4 mile hike through creek beds with water and slippery moving rocks and only a slight idea of where we were headed. Along the way discovering 2 waterfalls and countless living creatures. We discovered what we were made of as a family on that trip.  At one point not exactly near any towns we blew a tire and needed to replace all four of them which kept us there an extra two days. But no one was complaining. Then our son locked the keys in the truck. No service but we were able to find a semi-close neighbor who magically had a wire hanger. After about 45 minutes and countless swear words we were able to open with the wire. All in all it really did become one of our favorite getaway destinations. The best part was we didn’t see much of other people and didn’t have to think about covid. I didn’t want to return to our lock down but alas we did. If you’d like to see the pictures of that trip you can find them on my Instagram highlights. 

Coming back refreshed I was ready to get back into the swing of writing emails, making videos, and showing more of the behind the scenes of my business. Then the Black Lives Matter movement was taking the country by storm. I found myself writing emails but not wanting to send them. I felt like it was my time to step back and allow the space for black voices to be heard. I took the opportunity to discuss the movement with my children and had a candid talk with them about privilege and what that means to them and others. Having a background in Sociology I realized this is something I should have already been doing. Better late than never. It allowed me to be quiet and to really listen to what my kids had to say and their opinion on the matter. My creating continued but my motivation to do much else behind the scenes just wasn’t there. Then I lost my grandma to covid and that has a hard blow. I know she was 90 but she had a lot of spunk in her. I had to say goodbye over the phone, which sucks but it was better than not being able to say it at all. 

One of our biggest transformations of 2020 was switching from in school learning, to e-learning, to homeschooling. Our oldest who is a 3rd grader this year has been doing school from home online since March. It’s been an experience to say the least. I think clusterfuck would be the best word for it. But I will save that for another post. 

Every single day I am thankful for everyone who still found a way to support small business. Who found a way to support my small business. It’s my livelihood. It’s a part of who I am now. To be quite honest, it calms me. When I am at my bench I feel at peace and tranquil. Unless I am having those days where things don't come to together. But those days are so far and few in between. At the moment I’m feeling refreshed and ready to move forward in the way I started 2020. Only now I have lived through 2020 and I have grown. I am ready to go into 2021 a little wiser, and holding onto hope. 

Thank you for reading

Stay Wild

Niki




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