Normally on this day, I publish a list of the top 10 events of the hours-from-completed past year.

I was thinking about what I would write earlier this week. I was out walking my dogs, Gus and Rizzo, when I saw a tweet from ESPN’s Royce Young. It was around 5:30 p.m., 90 minutes or so before the Utah Jazz and Oklahoma City Thunder were scheduled to tipoff at Chesapeake Energy Arena in downtown OKC. The photo Young tweeted was one of Utah center Rudy Gobert warming up on the floor in an empty arena.

“Little bit surreal to look down and see Rudy Gobert on the floor warming up in OKC,” Young said in the tweet.

Surreal, indeed.

Nine and a half months earlier, on that same floor in that same arena, Gobert’s absence was the first real clue that our world was about to get turned upside down. It was March 11 and the players from the Jazz and the Thunder were on the floor, set to play a game that had NBA Western Conference playoff implications, when a Thunder medical official came racing to the scorers’ table.

You know the rest. The NBA shut down that night, a reaction to Gobert's positive COVID-19 test, one he had taken earlier in the day at an Oklahoma City hospital. College sports shut down the next day. Major League Baseball shuttered spring training by the end of the weekend. Sports went dark as our lives went into lockdown.

Jazz coach Quin Snyder told ESPN.com the return to Oklahoma City wasn’t PTSD but it was certainly a reminder of the year he’s lived, the year we’ve all lived.

“I think all of us have a greater appreciation for what we consider to be a normal life,” Snyder told Young. “You can’t help but remember that evening; it was significant for both teams, really for the league. But also, for contrast between that point and where we are now, the season, the hiatus, the bubble, coming back and playing again — it seems like a lifetime since that happened.”

It was halftime of Ole Miss’ Southeastern Conference Tournament game against Georgia when the Jazz-Thunder game was canceled. Ole Miss lost that night. Hours later, Arkansas defeated Vanderbilt. The tournament ended there, leaving the Rebels and the Commodores as the only clubs with traditional endings to their seasons, albeit disappointing ones.

So I’ve spent time this week asking myself if I wanted to do a top 10 list from 2020. I had a hard time coming up with items. There was Lane Kiffin’s first signing class, one that featured a bevy of four-star talent on a defense in desperate need of a personnel infusion. There was Elijah Moore’s All-American season, the renaissance year of quarterback Matt Corral and the relative disappearance of John Rhys Plumlee.

There were the dramatic, feel-good wins over Kentucky and South Carolina, Corral’s six interceptions in a setback at Arkansas, the controversial loss to Auburn, the close call against top-ranked Alabama and the maddening loss in the final minutes at LSU.

There was the record-breaking offense that electrified fans and media alike, leading to Ole Miss’ bid to the Outback Bowl in Tampa, where they’ll play No. 7 Indiana Saturday. There was the anemic defense which prevented a truly special season and served as a daily reminder as to why the change 13 months ago from Matt Luke to Kiffin was simply essential.

There was the what-if baseball season that was. Ole Miss was off to a fabulous start and days away from the launch of SEC play when the Rebels’ season was halted and, ultimately, canceled, leaving players, coaches and fans alike to wonder what could have been.

There were the Black Lives Matter marches that saw players all over the country, including those at Ole Miss, take a step back from sports and make a statement about what they perceive to be social injustices. There was the movement among those same student-athletes across the country to exercise their right to vote. Players registered to vote in droves — at Ole Miss and all over the country — in advance of a heated presidential election.

I could write about all of those things. I probably should. More locked-in sports journalists would, could and will, I suspect. More talented writers than I could really bite into some or all of those topics and make an entertaining countdown from Story No. 10 to Story No. 1.

I tried. I failed. I deleted paragraph after paragraph. My heart wasn’t in it, and I couldn’t force it. I guess the heart wants what it wants, after all.

Every time I try to put 2020 in context, I go back to that week when the Jazz and Thunder were shut down. I was going to go to Nashville to cover Ole Miss-Georgia. My column, one that summed up the season following the Rebels’ loss to the Bulldogs, was already written. I’ve done this long enough to know when a team is done, and that Ole Miss team was toast. I knew there would be changes following the season, and I knew my best bet to cover those changes adequately was to be in Nashville with access to Ole Miss’ locker room after the game.

I was three-fourths of the way to the Music City when Ole Miss’ basketball SID, Adam Kufner, was kind enough to call. The locker rooms would be closed, he said. I thanked him, pulled over at the nearest gas station and sat in my truck for 30 minutes.

Keep going, cover the tournament and figure it out or head home? At first, I decided to just go to Nashville. I figured I could go to one of my favorite stops on the SEC tour, enjoy a good night's sleep, sit at a bar and have a meal in peace. Something nagged at me, though.The virus was a mystery in March, and one of my brothers, Ryan, had been urging my parents for days to stay out of public places. I refilled my truck, grabbed a bottle of water and turned around. As I covered each mile closer to Oxford, I felt better and better about my decision.

I was in my office when the Gobert drama played out. I published my column, the one written days earlier, an hour or so later and felt the numbness take over. I didn't bother, if I recall correctly, waiting on quotes from Ole Miss. As that evening unfolded, it was clear Ole Miss versus Georgia would be nothing but an afterthought. I’ve been in sports journalism a long time. I’ve been fortunate to meet and cover and work with really talented people. Each phone call that night led to a darker outlook.

The next day, I was in the gym when I got a text from a very connected friend. “Watch this,” he said. “It’s all about to go down.” Within minutes, every conference tournament was canceled. Then the NCAA Tournament was canceled.

I went home. Our oldest daughter, Campbell, was coming home that day. The plan was for her to attend the surprise birthday party she'd organized for her younger sister, Caroline, spend the weekend at home and then head back to Fayetteville, where she was a freshman at the University of Arkansas, on Sunday. She was a little more than a half-hour from home when Arkansas announced that the remainder of the semester would be conducted online.

I told her to turn around and go back, but she wasn't thinking clearly. She finished the trip home. I met her in the driveway and hugged her as she sobbed. A day later, on Caroline's 17th birthday, we drove back to Fayetteville to get Campbell's things. One of the clearest memories I have is moving stuff out of Reid Hall. Those kids didn't know what had hit them. I didn't either.

The spring was brutal. The kids missed the routine of school. My son, Carson, missed his friends. He’d sleep until noon, shower after we yelled at him, put in his 30 minutes on PowerSchool (or whatever it’s called) and shoot hoops in the driveway. Virtual school was a joke, a complete waste of time. Everyone else fought over WiFi. Online classes at the UA, Oxford High School and Oxford Middle School, combined with my podcasting and the frequent use of a Peloton, stressed our already crappy internet provider. Everybody in our house had a meltdown at some point — well, everyone but my wife, but more on that later.

Professionally, I persevered. I moved to a long interview format. Some listeners loved it. Some hated it. I just pressed on, talking to people about COVID-19, life, etc. I booked interviews with people I’d always wanted to talk to, such as ESPN’s Young. I just pressed on. I leaned on colleagues. My friends Jay G. Tate and Gabe DeArmond don’t agree with me on everything. We’re different politically, certainly, but I couldn’t have gotten through 2020 without them. We pushed and encouraged one another. They’ve become treasured friends through this. Jeffrey Wright patiently guided me through the basics of Adobe Audition. I'm sure he got sick of me, but he never ignored or dismissed me. I'll be eternally grateful. As the summer progressed, I began to feel empowered.

By July, Major League Baseball started. The NBA was in a bubble. Student-athletes were back on campus, training for a season they weren’t sure would happen. Nothing was certain, but there was hope.

Then Aug. 8 happened. It was a Saturday. Campbell had returned to Fayetteville two days earlier and Laura and the other kids had traveled to Birmingham for the weekend to visit her sister. I had the house to myself and was excited to have some alone time. Then the news leaked that the Big Ten was going to cancel the season. The Pac-12 was sure to follow. The Big 12 was wavering. A friend with multiple SEC connections said, “We’re going to try to play, but I’m not sure I see a path.”

It was 90-plus degrees outside but I felt cold. I didn’t know it at the time, but that Saturday was my first day of COVID-19 symptoms. I figured it was fear/depression. My case was mild, so mild that by the end of that week, I didn’t think I’d had it at all. My fever never got higher than 100.4. I had a metallic taste in my mouth that was omnipresent and I guess I got a little worn down over the course of the week, but I wasn't convinced I had the virus. I quarantined in case.

That turned out to be wise, as an antibody test confirmed that I had indeed been infected. I’m 99 percent sure I got it from Laura, who simply didn't think much of back pain (she had back surgery in 2016) and night sweats, and I’m 99 percent sure I know where she got it. It’s why I’m a little skeptical about contact tracing. It took us months to figure it out.

Regardless, I told myself if there was a football season, I’d invest heavily in my product. I bought a $5,000 computer, upgraded my equipment significantly, officially converted my office into a studio and learned enough of the technology to begin operations. I quit leaning on others and became self-sufficient. Jay Tate drove to Oxford one day in September just to help me with audio settings. I got locked in to making the product we present to you better than it had ever been before.

As you know, we’ve had no in-person access this football season. Every media opportunity has come via Zoom. I ran into Mike Bianco at LBs Meat Market in May and Derrick Nix outside of Sneed’s Ace Hardware one day in early December. Otherwise, I’ve seen no one I cover in person since early March.

Yet this site and our podcast network, MPW Digital, has grown, both literally and figuratively. That’s a credit to you, the community that drives RebelGrove.com. I’d be lying, however, if I didn’t admit this year made me proud of myself at times. I spent countless hours alone at this computer, figuring out technology that would normally intimidate me. I watched more tutorials that I care to recall. The result has been a game-day production that I don’t expect to go away even when we get back to normal, whatever normal will be in a post-COVID world.

I told a friend recently that 2020 was the worst year of my professional life and the best year of my professional life, all wrapped in one tangled, intertwined glob. I’ve never worked harder than I did in 2020, so I haven’t had time to sort it out. I just know I’ve been incredibly thankful to have work.

Here’s the truth, and it feels weird saying it: The fall of 2020 has brought some of the most meaningful moments of my life. That’s crazy to say, given the pandemic and the polarizing Trump/Biden election and the heightened sensitivities that constantly surround us, but it did.

Campbell’s courses were all virtual but she thrived, balancing those demands with a job and an office in her sorority. Caroline is captain of the Chargerettes and president of the student council (an office that has forced her to deal with stuff I didn’t even imagine when I was 17), and she’s done what she’s always done — just crushed it.

Carson’s happy demeanor returned when in-person classes resumed. Fourteen-year-old boys need social interaction. I’ll never understand how some politicians and teachers unions sleep at night knowing they’re depriving young people of something that is absolutely essential to their emotional and intellectual well-being.

December has been a great month for me. Caroline got to compete in the state championships one final time. The Chargerettes didn’t win, but she got closure. They busted their tails for months, and in the final weeks, as COVID threatened everything, Caroline made sure her teammates were socially distancing in school so they couldn’t get contact traced. One of the seniors couldn’t participate, so they adjusted their routines in the final 24 hours. I sat in the Mississippi Coliseum and fought back tears. I’ve never been more proud — not just of her but of all of those girls. They’ll be telling stories of that weekend in Jackson for decades to come.

Days later, I made the drive to Tupelo to watch Carson’s Oxford Middle School team. They were tied, 1-1, at halftime. Then they played a beautiful half of soccer on Tupelo’s blue field, winning, 5-1. Carson is a starting center-midfielder (I'm right there with Ted Lasso when it comes to soccer knowledge) and he has a big role on that team. After the game, he hopped in the truck and talked the whole way back to Oxford. It felt so good to hear him happy.

It’ll be a long time before I take little things for granted again. Speaking of little things, this fall, I often found myself going outside at night, taking a glass of wine and an astrology app to look at the stars. I watched Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, looked for constellations and found a calming presence in the skies. My family wouldn't bother me, maybe because they were embarrassed of the nerd on the patio or maybe because they knew I just wanted a little time alone with my thoughts.

Either way, on Christmas Day, Laura and the kids gave me a telescope. I can’t figure it out, and my inability to close just one eye makes it really difficult to operate, but I was moved to tears by the gift and -- mostly -- the gesture. Laura has been a rock this year, an unwavering steady force maneuvering in tumultuous seas. Everyone else in our house panicked at least once this year. She never did.

So forgive me, please, for not making a neat David Letterman-style list of events from 2020. My thoughts, I suppose, are too scattered for that. Maybe it’s just too fresh.

However, as we turn to 2021, I’m hopeful. Vaccines are being distributed. Two of Campbell’s classes this spring semester are scheduled to be in-person. I’m optimistic Caroline’s first year of college will be “normal.” There are people I trust who believe stadiums will be full or mostly full in the fall.

Ole Miss' baseball team should have a special season. The Rebels are immensely talented and deep. Corral could be a legitimate Heisman candidate in 2021, assuming he can avoid the multiple-interception outings that plagued him in Fayetteville and Baton Rouge and assuming there is a way to replace Moore. I’m optimistic in-person recruiting will resume in the summer and I’m interested to see how Kiffin and Co. use their program momentum to take that next big leap, one that only occurs through recruiting success.

Ole Miss is in hot pursuit of five-star forward Brandon Huntley-Hatfield, the elusive type of prospect the Rebels’ basketball program has never been able to land. Kermit Davis has established the culture needed to win in the SEC, but he needs the star power to get over the top.

I expect to see Keith Carter and Ole Miss announce a major capital campaign, one that is sorely needed in the hyper-competitive SEC. It’s a bold move to launch something like that in a pandemic, but Carter has proven to be a bold leader.

I’m hopeful I’ll be able to walk into a bar in Oxford or Fayetteville, order a beer and sit by myself in the corner. I’ll send a text commemorating the moment to my friends, Jay and Gabe, so Jay can call me names and be amused by my anti-social tendencies. I’ll laugh at his insults, for he’s really good at them.

I’m hopeful I’ll be able to sit in a stadium this summer and watch the Cubs, reminding myself that no matter how many times I hate to love them, they always pull me back for more.

To all who lost a loved one in 2020, my sincere condolences. I wish you peace and comfort.

If you’re reading this, we made it. And if we can endure 2020, well, we’re stronger than we think we are.

Happy New Year. Here’s to a healthy, happy, prosperous 2021.