The Year That Was 2019

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How was my year 2019? Well, all I can say, I was happy, super busy and content. I can remember last year's new year celebration like yesterday and here I'm in the year 2020. This space has been neglected and the guilt continues. Same goes to our travel blog. I was out of my mojo or had I the blogger's block when it comes to writing. Let me reflect the highlights of the bygone year.

Thankfully no deaths in the family this year. Since my father's untimely death whenever I say goodbye to loved ones my instant thought is probably this is the last time I'm seeing them alive. It is quite an obsession and I can't get this feeling out of my mind. The good part is now I consciously make an effort to give my cent percent attention, time, and care to them. However guarded I'm about this phenomenon when death strikes it brings all the pain and sadness creating an emptiness in your heart. This year I'm grateful for having my loved ones alive and kicking.

This year I have ticked off Egypt from my bucket list. As I have said many times before Egypt, Greece and Italy were my top 3 list in terms of traveling. Standing in front of Pyramids is an ethereal experience, so is cruising in Nile like Pharaohs. The presence of heavy military forces all over the capital was unsettling a bit. Neither the political unrest nor harassing Egyptians could not dampen the spirit of our holidays.  The next country was Oman, my first in middle east. Other than yearly vacation we traveled quite less than what I would have liked. Melukote, Chikmagalur, Mantralaya and Thanjavur. That is mainly because of hubby's eye issue for which we had to go to the ophthalmologist every alternating weekends. Since I could not drive the travel took a major back seat.

I failed the reading challenge too. My set goal was 50 books for the year. I could read only 40 books. When I told this number hubby was astonished. According to him 40 is a big number. My reading was oscillated between all genres except sci-fi and horror. Maybe this year I will try to break this barrier by at least reading one book of these two genres.

Compared to last year the films that I have watched is less as well. The number is still staggering 110 and on an average 1 movie in three days. The list ranged from excellent to good to average to bad. I'm glad to say I've attended International Japan Film Festival this year, which was amazing to say the least.

The reason for declined number in films is binge watching on television series, especially the rerun of Game of Thrones before the grand finale which consumed a lot of time space. Also this year we have watched many plays and cultural performances that kept us busy on the weekends.

This year I have reduced my social medial time to less than an hour including FB, WhatsApp, Instagram, Youtube and Twitter. Among these I sheepishly admit I'm a little addicted to Twitter and I'm going to detox myself from this platform in the coming year.

This year I tried consciously not to get into arguments with bigoted family, friends, or acquaintances, but for a few occasions. I have decided to declutter them from my life slowly as they bring only hate. As I'm a sensitive person I don't have the energy or time to deal with such vicious people who don't have the sense to know what is right and what is wrong.

Year 2019 has been kind. Let's see how year 2020 pans out.