its been 3 years.

Hey everyone, it's Tilly and welcome back to my YouTube channel. First of all, I just want to say a massive thank you for the last video. I was genuinely scared coming back after a long time— not scared, but I thought I'd get the odd comment saying like, you shouldn't do something if you can't commit to it or something like that. But everyone was just really, really understanding and like, just live your life, girl. And I genuinely appreciate that so much. Thank you so much. I literally adore the community we have on here. Like, everyone There's a ghost. Oh my gosh, everybody was just telling me to live my life, don't apologize for having a good time and things, and I genuinely do appreciate that so, so, so much. People leave like paragraphs on here, which I just think is so sweet, and I even saw some people encouraging each other to get out of the comfort zone, which was the topic of last week's video. Thank you so much for making this all so nice for me. You're amazing and I love you so much. So I've just been living my life recently, as you know, but I stumbled across something the other day, and that was the knowledge that the first lockdown with the COVID pandemic happened around this week. 3 years ago. 3 years ago the world was in absolute shambles. And that to me is just absolutely insane. It kind of feels like yesterday but also so long ago at the same time, if that makes sense. But let's just have a little rewind. So before COVID even began, there was the beginning of 2020, right? And we were all so high, so high thinking 2020, it just sounds like it's gonna be so good. Oh my gosh, there's double number 2020, this is gonna be the best year of our lives. And then everything happened. Like, everything we could possibly not want to happen happened. So much bad stuff happened that they actually managed to make a documentary about it, literally just called 2020 on Netflix. If you haven't seen it and you want to see it, check it out. I know a lot of us don't want to go back to that year, but honestly, in retrospect, we've been through a lot and we should be proud of ourselves. But I think when so much happens in the year that you can literally make a documentary about it Yeah, and then I feel like ever since that point there was domino effects for absolutely everybody. When I think about myself in 2019, the main thing I was doing was motivational speaking, and that's when I was doing all the vlogs and things on this channel. Like 2019, we've got Madrid, we've got all sorts, China, like went to so many places, and I was focusing on motivational speaking, tech conferences. I was in my speaking, public speaking era is what I'm trying to say. But then obviously COVID happens and all the flights got cancelled and you can't go anywhere. You're stuck in your little home, in your little area, in your town. 2019 was when all that was kicking off, but also the year where it all had to stop so abruptly. And I was a bit like, oh, what do I do now? In 2020, because of the lockdowns and not being able to travel and do all the motivational speaking and the public talks which I was doing before, I actually found myself getting into presenting for the very first time. I was reporting the news of all things, which honestly during 2020, do you want to be reporting the news? Not really. But that's where I found myself and it was such a good lesson for me. I learned so much like skills for how to present and how to talk and be more confident and everything. It really did me the world of good. But to think, if lockdown and that hadn't happened, would I still be traveling and doing the motivational speaking? Because I had so much planned for the rest of the year and 2020 as well, like looking forward. There was so much in the pipeline which of course everything had to get cancelled. But obviously not just me, there were domino effects for for everybody with all the furloughs and the redundancies. Like, so many people lost their job that year and nobody really had a clue what was going on or like what direction they should go in now. Then when we talk about the actual lockdowns, what was the thing that peaked during that time? TikTok. And TikTok is still ever so huge. And would TikTok be as huge, as influential as it is now, had lockdown and COVID not happened because that was the time where everyone was at home and they were looking for something to do, trying to entertain themselves, and TikTok was there. So even the biggest platform we have today, you could say that maybe that's due to lockdown. And TikTok still has the power it has to be so influential today because of that time. Like, when I think back to lockdown COVID 2020 summer, all I could see is like that burning heat that we had, like the best summer temperature and weather-wise, Britain was popping off. And also, if you're around my age, probably all you could think about too was like the blooming whipped coffee trend and all the little TikTok dances I for sure was doing all throughout that time to keep myself entertained. It's also because of honestly my mom's furlough that I was able to enter that singing competition in 2020, which was all filmed socially distanced and everything. And it was on that show where I met who'd be my future boyfriend. So it's crazy. If my mom wasn't on furlough, she wouldn't have been free to take me to that competition. I know his family and his side was absolutely the same, but it's because of that that we went there and met some incredible people, including him. We could talk about Gen Z as much as we want. I mean, I'm from Gen Z, and I truly think like the most influential thing for us was TikTok, and then all the trends and the fashion trends especially took off from that and still are. Everything comes from TikTok that's trending. But you also got to talk a little bit about Generation Alpha, who everyone was really worried about at the time. Like, how is this going to impact them? My little sister is 11, and so she's Generation Alpha, and she was in primary school when this was happening. And everyone was so worried, like, what is this going to do for the social skills of these kids? Like, how are they going to grow up? Are they going to lose touch with their friends? Is it going to be this huge thing? And also the amount of education that they were missing out on. Then there were also COVID babies, like the babies that were born during COVID time, or being a toddler or young child growing up during COVID time. And I actually seen a TikTok the other day of this man who took his— he literally called it like a COVID baby— took him to a shopping center, and this kid was wild. There were also people in the comment section going, yeah, I work with kids and it's all the COVID babies right now, and man, they are another breed. Which, can you blame them? They were born in like peak chaos. But I mean, jokes aside, I thought I was gonna die at one point, like fully There was this one day which I literally thought was gonna be my last day because I didn't actually know how vulnerable I was. Like, I was staying away and isolating myself because I had a chest infection, just a random chest infection when I was younger. And while anybody else would just deal with a chest infection, it actually like completely stopped me from breathing. So I didn't know how vulnerable I was to it, so I was just being extra safe. And I was really nervous about it because Obviously, if you're vulnerable, you have to self-isolate. But I just remember one day, like, my mom was really ill, and she didn't even have COVID at the time, but she just felt ill. And like, I could see that she was ill, and I was under the impression that like she'd contracted COVID. I think as well because everybody was so stressed out about getting it and saw everybody dying all around us, like, even like the littlest illness, you're gonna think, I've got it. Like, you've got— you've got it like it was the plague. And so when that happened to my mom, I was terrified because I think, you know, I live with her. We're a family of 6 in like quite a small house, so I was like, if she's got it, I'm a goner basically. And I literally remember this one night just thinking, if this is my last night, like, what do I do? How do I make the most of it? And I was terrified. And I went to bed and I was terrified that night, which sounds so silly now because obviously I'm here and I have had COVID I think twice and it's all been fine, but you do— you just don't know in the moment, you know. I fully thought that would be my last day or my last week. On earth. But yeah, the idea that the first lockdown happened 3 years ago, like this week, it just totally took me off guard. Like I say, it feels like yesterday and so long ago all at the same time. And the effects and the domino effects for everybody and, you know, how we're living life today— I mean, even the fact that people act as though, like, now, like, it never happened, you know. I went to a concert the other day and, like, being sardines on the tube is normal again. And there was a point where we were all 2 meters and we were social distancing that it was like it couldn't— it didn't feel like life could ever be normal again. But here we are. And that is controversial because obviously the disease doesn't just like disappear. Um, but the way we're acting now, it's like it never even happened, which is really strange. It just feels like an era of life which— that it seems like it was from a book, you know. But hearing that was 3 years ago, I just thought like that was a talking point in itself and a bit of a reflection on 2020. I feel like a lot of people will agree with me when I say like 2020 2021, 2022 sort of all felt like one year. Like, I couldn't tell them apart because COVID was still a very like prevalent thing. And 2023 now is like the year where it's like nothing ever happened. And of course it's still very much here, it cannot be discredited for that at all, but we've come so far from that first lockdown. I thought I was gonna die. So cheers to everybody for still being here and being able to say that time was 3 years ago now. Like, just let that sink in. And I guess we're yet to see the impact that has on, of course, Gen Alpha, as well as the COVID babies, like, who were born in the heat of it all. They do seem like they're another breed, I can't lie, but who could blame them? At the time of TikTok, there were all these TikTok trends, like all the dances and things like that, and the whipped coffee and things. But there's TikTok trends today that still talk about COVID time and everything that happened. I don't know if anyone's seen them, but it's like people going, 'You got 2 weeks of school because of this COVID and we all need to isolate and things, and now next year they're turning 20. Like, that chunk— that's a whole chunk of life which is just— was given to COVID. Like, all feels sandwiched, like, so quick and so close together, like it was only one year, those all three of them, because of COVID And people talk about how in the future, in the history books, the kids will be like researching and writing articles and essays all about COVID and the year of 2020. And hey, we could say that we lived it, and that that first lockdown was 3 years ago. It's like, what? I don't know if it's just me, but like, that's mad. Anyways, thank you so much for watching. Let me know like how you feel and if you're in the same boat as me. Is it like shocking that it was 3 years ago? Let me know the age you were like when it all started to now, how you think that's affected you, if it has in any way. Also let me know any domino effects which are still affecting you today, because the way that whole thing works is like just blows my mind, to be honest. I really hope you enjoyed this video. I will see you all next time. Bye!