What 2020 taughtme
The shock of Covid persuades four Kiwis to change their lives for the better. Niki Bezzant reports.
It’s a common refrain that started in about October: ‘‘I can’twait to put this year behind me.’’ The memes abound: my plans vs. 2020; 2020 with a one-star, ‘‘very bad, would not recommend’’ rating; the apocalypse jokes; the general feeling of ‘‘wake me up when it’s over’’.
There’s no doubt 2020 was a year that turned most of us upside down.
But for some people, its weirdness – and the chaos and struggle it created – was the trigger for transformational change.
It prompted Big Life Decisions; decisions that might not have made, if not for the strange situation we found ourselves in during the national lockdown and beyond.
A fresh start
‘‘On New Year’s Eve last year, not, in my wildest dreams, did I think this would have happened,’’ says Anna*, a 48-year-old businesswoman and mother of three, who in June made the decision to leave her marriage of 16 years.
Before lockdown, Anna says she was living the typical life of a busy working mother.
‘‘I was just living. I was in the guinea pig wheel.’’
She says the first lockdown was ‘‘definitely the trigger event’’ for her decision to walk away.
‘‘It wasn’t that I was with him [all the time]. Itwas that Iwas with myself and I could really examine my feelings.
‘‘I could hold up my feelings and go, ‘oh, when his work trips get cancelled, why am I gutted? Why when I’m out by myself do I have a better time? Why have my happiest holidays been with my girlfriends? Why do I hate every weekend? Why do I feel like I’m smoothing things over the whole time?’ ’’
She realised her decision had been percolating a long time.
‘‘I think I knew my marriage was rotten, but I didn’t want to go deep down to touch it. Because I knew it was going to be messy. I probably always knew I’d leave him, but I thought it would be when the kids had left, or it would be a trigger event like my parents dying. But instead itwas Covid-19.
Anna says a book, Glennon Doyle’s Untamed, also had a big influence on her thinking.
‘‘It’s about how humans, but mainly women, are tamed into a cage that’s actually quite nice. Let’s be clear: my life was nice ... You know, we’re not poor. He’s kind of a nice person. But what [Doyle] is saying is: isn’t life meant to be more beautiful than that?
‘‘I was staying [in the marriage] for my kids and really ... your children don’t need you to save them. They need to watch you save yourself.’’
Her decision, when it came, was clear-headed.
‘‘I said to him, ‘I don’t love you any more and I don’t want to live with you’. I’m crying now as I say this, but [then] I had no emotion; I wasn’t even angry.
‘‘And he went ballistic, and I just kept very centred. Because when I said the truth, it was easy to say.’’
It’s been tough, she says, but she wouldn’t change anything.
‘‘It’s hard. I cry every day. But it’s hard and it’s the right thing. I’m just so happy and excited for my future. What a year, 2020. But man, I know I made the right decision.’’
If she had to sum it up, Anna says 2020 has taught her to listen to her inner voice. ‘‘Make space for it. Sometimes, it doesn’t have words. It’s just a feeling. Don’t ignore it, because it knows. It knows what you want.’’
Hitting the road
Time for self-reflection was a strong trigger for Ken Clearwater’s big life decision, too.
The campaigner for male victims of sexual violence and founder of Male Survivors Aotearoa (MSSAT) says the lockdown gave him time to think it might be time for a change in his life.
‘‘Covid actually, as horrible as it was, was a time of reflection. It was about suddenly realising that my world basically had revolved around supporting other men and boys. And I realised that in that 23 years, I’d never had a break; I’d done nothing for myself.
‘‘I needed to spend some time with myself. I’m 67. My dad died at 67. My brother had a stroke just recently at
64 and my sister had a stroke at 67. So I thought, ‘wow, what’s this all about?’... I just woke up and decided it was time to have a break. I didn’t want to go to work any more.’’
His break took a dramatic form: Clearwater resigned from his role at
MSSAT, sold his Christchurchhome and bought a campervan, in which he plans to explore the country.
‘‘We’ve got a beautiful country here that I haven’t even seen. So I thought, it’s time to see those things.’’
He knew he’d made the right decision, because of how he felt afterwards, he says. ‘‘I haven’t looked back. I’ve never had that, you know, sometimes you have a bit of guilt; if you’re not doing this, who’s going to do it? And even with selling the house, there were no knots in the tummy, ‘am I making the right decision or not’? Everything I’ve done has just fallen into place. And so, I know the decision’s the right decision. And where it’s going to take me, I have no idea.’’
Giving back and getting grounded
For Vanessa Baxter, two rounds of lockdown forced her to make a decision that led in an unexpected direction, with a part-time job kicking off a complete change of career.
The catering business that the former MasterChef finalist founded was going well, pre-Covid, with the added fulfilment of a social enterprise component supporting mothers back into the workforce. ‘‘Business was thriving, and I could see it ticking over and growing and building momentum. And then Covid hit.’’
At that point, she says, ‘‘every single event that we had booked was cancelled literally overnight’’.
During the first lockdown, Baxter tried to pivot the business, but came to the conclusion that wasn’t viable. She decided to wait it out. ‘‘By the end of the first lockdown, I was a little bit nervous but I thought, ‘well, we can wait and see what happens’.’’
‘‘I was quite surprised at how many events we rescheduled in that middle section. I thought, ‘OK, maybe all is not lost’.’’
When Auckland went into lockdown again, though, Baxter says she had to call it quits.
‘‘I thought, I just can’t live with the highs and lows of the constant change, which is completely beyond my control. So I just went, ‘that’s it, finished. I’m done. I need to do something else’. Then I realised, I had no income.’’
A couple of weeks into her newly unemployed state, Baxter flicked through her local newspaper.
‘‘I saw a classified ad for a teacher aide job at a local primary school.
And I thought, ‘huh, well, I can do that, because I used to be in education. I’ll give it a go’.’’
Getting that modestly-paid, parttime job sparked a passion she’d long forgotten. ‘‘I totally fell in love with the work in about aweek of working at the school,’’ she says.
Baxter has now applied to go back to university next year to get her graduate diploma in teaching, ‘‘which is exciting and terrifying all at once’’.
She says she would never have made the decision had it not been for Covid. The teacher aide job ‘‘opened my eyes to how happy I was.
‘‘I was waking up in the morning and I couldn’t wait to get to school and Iwas leaving school and I was so energised by the day. And the next day, I’d wake up and say, ‘yay, it’s a school day’.
‘‘I was so happy about it. And so, I had to look at myself and go, ‘wow, you’ve been trying so hard to run a business and so hard to be in the public eye because you needed to sell whatever you were selling. And now you’re off to school quietly doing your thing, and hopefully having an impact on some of the children there in a positive way’.
‘‘And it came so naturally – and so easily. It just felt so cathartic and liberating and fabulous. So that’s why Iwant to pursue that, even though I’m 53.’’
Working with kids is a humbling experience, she says, ‘‘because you’re not the hero. You’re a key to helping someone else achieve something better in their day, or their life. So you’ve just got to kind of look inside yourself and say, ‘this is no longer about me. It’s what I can impart to help someone else’.’’
In 2020, she says, ‘‘I’ve worked out a better balance for myself. It doesn’t matter if I’m not in the public eye all the time. And it doesn’t matter if everyone knows what I’m doing and that I’m a success. That doesn’t equal my own peace and happiness. Which is big, because that’s what I thought before.’’
Burnout cafe
Kevin Blakeman’s work situation was burning him out. Though he didn’t know it, he says, until he stopped.
Pre-Covid, the 36-year-old chef was working in a senior role in an Auckland hotel, and doing private chef work on the side.
‘‘I didn’t realise how tired I was and how – not down – but sort of on autopilot I was,’’ he says.
Taking an enforced break and spending time with his wife and two kids over lockdown re-energised Blakeman and re-ignited a dream: ‘‘Why not start our own business?’’
It was a risky decision, but Covid threw a new perspective on things, he says.
‘‘I was in an incredibly secure job. And then Covid comes along and, all of a sudden, that incredibly secure job might not be so secure any more. Who knows what could happen in the future? And that, added to how busy my private chef business had become [post lockdown], made us think, you know, it could work. And if it doesn’t ... we’ll be fine. This is the time to try it.’’
He and his wife Jen decided to buy a cafe in Auckland’s North Shore, where so far, business is booming, with the new normal – people working from home – swelling the ranks of customers.
‘‘This is my happy place now,’’ says Blakeman. ‘‘And I’d like to think that when I speak to people now, I speak a lot differently.
‘‘I’m probably a lot more enthusiastic again. [Before], that was gone. That was gone from me. It’s different now. I’m loving it again.’’ His lesson from 2020?
‘‘Take a break. Stop. If you’re not happy, why aren’t you happy? You can’t find out that answer, unless you just stop.
‘‘Take aweek.
‘‘We think there’s always somethingwe need to do. But what’s going to happen if you don’t do it? The world’s probably not going to end, and you’ll come out better at the end of it.’’
* Anna’s name has been changed for privacy reasons.