Born in 2021

If you were born in 2021, Melbourne's lockdowns continued into a sixth episode — the city that had already endured more lockdown days than anywhere on earth somehow enduring more. The protests in Punt Road in September were angry and sometimes violent, the frustration of two years of restrictions finding its expression on the streets. But the vaccination program was rolling out, slowly and then with gathering speed, and by November the state premiers were releasing their roadmaps out of restrictions — certain vaccination thresholds giving back the freedoms that had been suspended.

The Djokovic visa saga was still a month away (it would arrive spectacularly in January 2022), but the borders were beginning to crack open. The COVID Fiscal Year had given Australia its longest unbroken run of economic growth interrupted for the first time, but the recovery was rapid. The property market had gone absolutely insane during COVID — low interest rates, government incentives, people reassessing what they needed from a home — and prices in Sydney and Melbourne had risen by 20-25 per cent in a single year.

First home buyers were in despair. Ash Barty was world number one in tennis and winning everything. The Australian cricket team won the Ashes at home, 4-0.

The flat white was $5.50. The beach at Christmas was, finally, open.