There are times in one’s life that things do not always go as planned either as a result of a personal mistake or effect of something beyond our control. I think for the latter, we would just have to play by it and try to streamline it back to the actualization of our goal(s). Well, such is life for you and me. And now, we have one of the prompts for the weekend engagement posts by 
Fast Forward
If you could fast forward over a particular year of your life so you didn’t have to live it which woul it be, and why?
For me, that year would be 2020. Yes, that is the very year I would not want to live again, if I could re-live it. Or who knows? Maybe in my next life. Basically, I wasted that whole year doing nothing in particular. You don’t believe? Well, follow me on this short journey.
The year started like every other new year apart from the fact that the news of one pandemic (then epidemic) which was already ravaging some big countries in the world. And it was not yet discovered in my country but the fear had found its way into people’s heart already. This fear did justice to just their individual concerns and not the way they were supposed to handle it, you know, by the use of nose mask, social distancing etc. Even when there were now some cases in my country, I can bet that almost no one did the needful until it started to spread like wildfire. I guess we all thought: “oh, it is still far away!”
I remember I had my first year final exams in school in January, went back home to rest and maybe prepared to resume back by March or so. Then the pandemic hit. Distant relatives came back home, everybody had to hid in their closure. The roads were as empty as air. While Mother Earth was thankful to having very much less pollution per time.
After the first 2-3 months of the pandemic and lockdown in my country, the lockdown was relaxed a bit and I had to go with my Dad to another state where his workplace was. This was because he was not in a good state health-wise – not covid-19 at all! Prior to this, I was trying my hands around to see what I could learn or do to maximize that time. I started to learn coding with Python but I did not get anywhere with it till I left for the journey.
On reaching the destination, starting to settle down a bit and I could say I spent a month settling. How? I don’t think I know. Then, I was trying hard to get back to my learning but it was not going well at all. As per my Dad, I had to help him with almost everything ranging from bathing, cooking to accompanying to work. And at times, I’d be trying to test some stuffs out and I’d be beckoned on which I could not refuse. This went on for like 6 months. During this time, we do travel to and from our home in the other state almost every three weeks. The highest we went without visiting home was six weeks, I think.
On the long run, I saw that I was not assimilating anything at all in my learnings due to the unavoidable distractions. I was not having my own time at all. At a point, I just gave up on it. I didn’t touch it anymore. I was just hoping on when I would resume back to school cos here, then, schools had been allowed to open as long as they followed the due protocols in ensuring that the virus does not spread but contained.
Before I could say jack the end of the year came, with a little joy in my heart that we’d soon go back to school. Fortunately, my school resumed activities sometime late in January 2021. And that was it, a whole year wasted without doing anything meaningful relative to skills acquisition or any money-making venture. Although, in other aspects taking pictures with my then new Infinix Hot 7, eating and watching movies were what I did for a living then!