Covid-19 and 2020, the year that never was. "My experience"

Sitting at the edge of my bed last night, I started reminiscing about my life and the year 2020. I suddenly realize it's November already and that the year is left only a month to pass away and as practice demands, I needed to take inventory for the year concerning my life and business. November is usually the month that I balance all my inventory for the year. I needed to prepare a balance sheet for my business financial inventory for the year. I have to check the gains and losses to know my financial standing which will enable me to make a feasible budget for Christmas. But unfortunately this time, the losses so much outweigh the gains that I started wondering where have I been. Then it dawned on me that this is 2020, the year that never was.

Everyone will have a story to tell about the year 2020 and the best description that I can give to it is that it is the year that never was. It sounds like a joke to realize that the year is coming to an end in about six weeks from now when I have barely gone to work for three months. What was thought to be a year of the miraculous judging by the significance of the number double "20" turned out to be year humanity would never wish to experience. A year of sorrows and misery, a year of disappointed and failed opportunities, a year of financial downturn and business collapse, a year of bad governance and evil experiments with mankind, a year that stopped the wars for the real war, the war to survive, a war in which human weapons are baseless and useless. 2020 could be described as a year of blood and fire like the incidence of Sodom and Gomorrah as recorded in the holy book. A year that brought the rich and the poor to the same level, a year where superpower Nations leaders shared tears of helplessness, a year of lies and conspiracy, and a year of many things depending on the part of the world you live in.

It all started as a joke, and we thought as usual it will be like every other news we have heard. We heard about it from the internet that people are dying from a disease called Covid-19, we thought it was not our business we have heard such news before, the Australian fire was one of them. But soon it dawned on us that no one could be spared. And without any plan in view, our government imposed a lockdown on us. Everyone has to stay home, no more office routine, no more partying, no more church-going, and to make it more funny markets where food commodities are sold were closed down. We thought this will last for a few days or weeks, since we have some flesh wads in our pockets we could use the time to bond with our family members, and as days pass by it soon dawned on us that the weight of our pockets is going down and there is no way of refilling it. What started in mid-March was extended to late August. Five good months of staying indoors watching TV and playing ludo games with the kids, when I hardly had up to an hour to sit in front of a TV watching due to my work nature. Five months of inactivity without moving out of my compound as there are no near friends or relatives to visit. I noticed one morning while standing naked in my bathroom that I could no longer see my private parts as I look down due to my budging stomach, an indication that I have become overweight. I quickly have to form an emergency gym in my house and engaged my children in physical sporting activities like football and racing in the compound to lose some weight. Staying at home has a way of making someone hungry even when you barely have enough cash with you.

If I say the year 2020 is a year that never was, it won't be an understatement. The year 2020 is a year on the reverse, a year that took many backward by three to four years. A year that has no time nor calendar, a year that defiled every human calculation and brought everyone to his or her knees. The year 2020 brought my financial life backward by a year. As I sat to take a record, I found out that my financial status was greatly affected by the Covid-19 and other ill events that happened in my country. Apart from the food that we eat and the few new clothes that were acquired there is nothing else that I can say we gained this year, and it already six weeks for the year to end. For these eleven months, I can say I haven't had the opportunity to do business for three months. And when the lockdown was relapsed, and everyone trying to get back to business to find a way to recover the lost time then comes the "EndSars" protest in my country. Another blow on the economic condition of the people. We have to go back home again for another month as our nation enters another lockdown.

Looking back to all the incidence that has happened this year, I will say they were all calculated to make the year a year that never was. While we now have the privilege to go to work and do business, some countries are sending their citizens back home, an imposed lockdown to curtail the spread of the dreaded Covid-19. No one is certain when all this will be over. Hope seems to be the only medicine now and we have this hope that just as the year 2020 is ending in a few weeks from now, all the evils of the year will end with it, thus ushering us into a flesh year that counts for everyone.