Choosing to Prosper

CHAPTER 9The Year 2020

2020 was painful, but a reminder that life is worth living, even more so authentically and on your own terms.

Like many, I stepped into 2020 with big hopes and aspirations for the start of a brand‐new decade. Little did we know that 2020 would be a year that would turn the entire world completely upside down. I remember having to travel for a women's conference I was speaking at in Oxford, Mississippi, at the end of February 2020 and seeing the headlines about the pandemic on the news as I waited for my flight. It was quite unnerving. There were even a few people wearing masks in the airport, which made me feel even more unsettled. I decided that maybe I needed to buy a mask for myself, but no one was selling them in the airport concession stores, so I bought a bottle of hand sanitizer instead. The unsettling feeling stayed with me all through my flight. I wasn't sure what to do at first, but once I arrived at the conference, it was just a regular day where everything seemed normal, and I forgot all about the uneasiness I'd felt earlier. Two weeks later we went into a panicked lockdown across the country and as the days, weeks, and months passed, we all began to feel the real and devastating impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic.

Overnight, things got crazy for everyone. Schools were closed with no plans in place for remote learning. Employees were sent home. Grocery stores were overwhelmed with demand but not enough supply, and then there was the terrible, ...