OPINION: When I signed off for 2020 in December I felt a sense of leaving the year behind and feeling confident life and our daily movement and activities would be able to return to some sort of normal in the New Year, with hopefully the worst of the coronavirus behind us and the start of the end of the "hard border".
Like many Australians we have family scattered in different parts of the country, and indeed in other parts of the world, so the hope of being able to come together for Christmas and our two-year-old son to see his grandparents for the first time in a year was a reunion and a boost we all needed.
We were fortunate to be able to make that happen, flying from Perth to spend some valuable time with our extended families in New South Wales.
Our trip had a few bumps along the journey. We stopped in Adelaide to watch the Australia-India Test before heading to Sydney.
But we began to think we would need to pack our bags and go home as the WA Government had reinstated the hard border with NSW after a COVID-19 outbreak on the Northern Beaches.
The hard border is a mental health hurdle only a few can jump.
We always thought when going to Sydney that it could happen and were mentally prepared we might need to quarantine at home for 14 days when we came home, which has become a reality for tens of thousands of Australians.
It was worth going and I realise we were fortunate to be able to have those moments so many have missed out on in 2020.
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It's not about holidays, it's about reuniting with your parents or your children, having a beer, spending quality time if you live a part.
I have plenty of friends who had their Christmas plans ruined by the sudden border closures or in WA the retrospective quarantine requirements for recent arrivals from interstate.
What has reared its ugly head throughout this latest turbulent patch of cases in the eastern states is the lack of care and compassion from many within the community about the people whose reunions either didn't eventuate or have been cut short.
I really feel for all those people.
We are more than halfway through quarantine which has been okay.
We have only really been caught short without lettuce for our dinner on Saturday night when we forgot to include it in our home shop but if that's the worst of our problems, we clearly don't have any.
But as Peter Collignon, professor of infectious diseases, wrote in The Sun Herald: "What we do, however, needs to be proportionate to the risk at the time. Too often, panic and isolationism seem to be playing major parts in headlines, opinions and decision making."
As I write this, Greater Brisbane is finishing up a three-day lockdown over the threat of a woman who was in the community with the UK strain and that retrospective quarantine requirement has affected travellers from Queensland to WA, with the hard border in place to the Sunshine State, New South Wales and Victoria.
The hard border is a mental health hurdle only a few can jump.
It's loved, cheered, celebrated and reflected in sky-high opinion polls, talkback calls, letters to the editor and social media posts.
While most will argue it's a symbol of safety, it's also a marker of division and something which is really just so 2020.
Let's just hope it can bugger off sooner rather than later.
Bring on the vaccination and better times ahead.
Oliver Peterson hosts Perth LIVE from 3pm to 6pm weekdays on 6PR.
