What an unexpected year it was!

We can all agree that this year was very different and unexpected, although it started just as normal as any other – the typical new year resolutions, big hopes, dreams, and plans…

For me personally, it started pretty well. I bought my first tattoo machine and started practicing, which was a dream of mine for so many years! And I traveled in North Italy and Malta for two weeks by myself with no particular plan just before the first lockdown! (and I just remembered that I haven’t written about this trip)

Then everything changed on 360 degrees, I guess for all of us.

I had tickets for Bulgaria and I was planning to stay there for only 3 days. Everyone was telling me that I can’t even travel, what’s left for coming back after only three days. But I still couldn’t believe I won’t be able to get back to London. As was expected they quarantined me for two weeks so I quickly changed my plans.

Obviously, it wasn’t a year for plans.

I decided that I’ll stay at home for an uncertain time. Anyway, I haven’t been home for more than a week in more than two years.

So I took this situation and made it an opportunity – I started this blog, I had plenty of time for drawing and reading, and most important – I was with my family!

Then the summer came and I went to Sozopol for two days with my best friend to enjoy the sun and have some party around. But after those two days, I decided that I’ll stay there for the whole summer. The weather was great, I made new friends, got a job (after my savings were over), and had a lot of fun.

Other plans I had were for my education – I was supposed to go study in Malta. But at the end of the summer, I met an amazing person and decided to live with him in Burgas, so I enrolled to study there.

…honestly, I’m not sure anymore those plans happen because of this crazy year, or that’s just me.

But anyway, in Burgas happened another thing I’ve been dreaming of – I opened my own studio and gallery!!!

Maybe if covid didn’t come, I would be still in London at the beginning of the year, not feeling the best way, as I’ve always felt in this city. Maybe I was going to go to Malta, study for the next three years, and probably again feeling the same way. Maybe I was going to travel alone, as far as I can, but still feeling this way. So I’m kinda happy things happened this way. Of course, I still want to travel, even more than ever, but I hope I’ll be with someone, and I hope I won’t feel this way anymore.

So yeah, things definitely changed this year. The world kinda stopped for a while. We took a breath from the busy everyday life. We had time to be with our families and with ourselves. We reconsidered what is most important and maybe what we really want to do with our lives. Many of us found new hobbies or tried to make our hobbies full-time jobs.

We all know it’s been a tough year for many people – many people left our world, it’s been hard for the medics, and so on. But you’ve been listening to that on every news channel all year round. This post is not a balance sheet for what covid has done. It is about how we can still get through this and unexpectedly change drastically our lives in hopefully a better direction.

Life is unsure anyway, even without covid, so we have to learn how to be flexible in such situations.