Hello there! I'm wishing you a happy new year wherever you are!

As we all know it, 2020 was a chaotic train-wreck, a complete shitshow as some might call it. No words can express the severity and the tremendous grief 2020 has caused us. Millions of people lost their jobs and their loved ones. Some households were and still are not sure whether they can put food on the table at this very moment. The people on living on the streets, I'm not quite sure how they'd survive another day. Safety and tomorrow has been so uncertain, I wish I had just written a sentence for a dystopian fiction but I'm merely stating facts.

I've been privileged enough to not have to face such atrocities. I'm grateful for being able to self-quarantine, safe and fed in my home. 2020 had given me -- and surely many of us -- the time to re-think about how we go about our lives. It forced us to contemplate about what is essential and what can we live without. In this sense, 2020 has been a year of purging for many of us, including me.

In 2020, I had my first panic attack. I thought that was going to be my last day on Earth as I put my hand on my chest -- pounding heart and choked throat. I'm still not really sure as to why that happened but that forced me to put down my cigarettes for good. I really hated it at first. I enjoyed smoking, though virtually it can only do me harm. Smoking was a big part of my social life, it almost became my personality which was quite petty & embarrassing. I thought I had lost a little bit of myself, but I'd prefer to lose a little bit of myself than my lungs.

As I continued to struggle with frequent fatigue, feeling of breathlessness and panic attacks in the following months, I started to see life & being a human in a new light. Us, humans, are so fragile. A little fault on our system can break us. These delicate systems in our body will take thousands of dollars to replace -- currently those replacements come in metals and polymers and other people's organs, some are temporary too. I think that's the same with forests and oceans, and everything in between. These massive life force are powered by virtually irreplacable intricate microprocesses. I wonder why anyone would do damage to these forms of life. I wonder why did I even start smoking. I must thought that I was just a little too young, a little too invincible for anything to hurt me.

The breathlessness I have been feeling in 2020 prompted me to take a better care of my body and the space I live in. I started making sitting under 10 AM sun a habit for some time. In that little quiet moment, I thought about the people who are fighting for their lives on ventilators. They must have missed this warmth. They must have missed breathing this humid air. I don't think I need to be put on a ventilator to realize how precious it is to be able to just, breathe.

Breathing comes so easily and effortlessly to most of us, yet it is one -- if not the most -- vital activity to a living being. 2020 gave me the realization about how important it is to preserve our health and to not take anything for granted. It helped me figure out what is most essential for me to live my best life, smoking is definitely not on the list.

Many events that happened in 2020 caused us to "hold our breath", I'm hoping that 2021 will let us take a breather. Breathe in, breathe out. Hello, 2021. Please do us good.