About what ifs

 It has been a year since we started to feel the consequences of a global pandemic. A year since people stopped going into work, a year since we downloaded Tiktok, a year since we started wearing our masks and gloves. So many things had changed within the space of few weeks, businesses closed, people stuck together and torn apart. The normal flow of life had slowed down and sped up, changed courses and swapped priorities.

Do you ever think, what if Covid-19 never hit? Where would you be? What would be different and what would be the same? If you were back waking up in your bed on the 28th February 2020, what would be your first thoughts of hope on how your day will look like?

Around that time, I was excited for a change, excited for packing up and leaving, leaving my job, leaving my house, my friends, the city, leaving it all to start again. I was excited for an opportunity, one that comes around once in your life, a promotion with a life upgrade. Including a move and life-style changes, like the need for driving, which I'd never experienced in 25 years of my life. I don't know how ready I was, but I really did want it to happen. For both right and wrong reasons. I was going through heartbreak and I needed a change, an in-your-face move, only that I was inching towards that heartbreak. I thought, well, if the situation broke us off, then I should just change everything that I am, change the situation, maybe then it will work. And thank Hecate I did not end up doing so.

It wasn't all the love story though. It was also my desperate need for doing and achieving more, and not going to lie, that opportunity was a *chef's kiss* career boost, and I was truly humbled that I managed to get a raffle ticket for it. But then the pandemic hit and like many other things, the raffle was put on hold. But like, for a whole year. And now the raffle is coming back. So much has changed in that year, I don't even know if my ticket would still be valid, or do I even want it to be valid, heavens, have I lost it in my move?! A promotion, brand-new hotel, life-style upgrade, and being all on my own with my cat. I cannot imagine what it would have been like, probably, because everything that happened instead of all of that was so unexpected and so right, that the what ifs, for the first time in my life, are irrelevant.

I am not happy that the pandemic hit. I am just happy that this was the affect that it had on my life.