With a New Year visible off in the horizon, I am prompted to look back on the past year and look forward to the new year. I cannot change what happened in the past year but I can make changes that will affect my new year. One of those changes is that I want to get back to blogging. I love, love, love writing, so why am I not doing it anymore? I can name several minor reasons, but what is the underlying reason that made me stop? I come up with one thing, Covid.
Huh you say? Covid? Covid made you stop
writing/blogging? Is it because you got Covid and now you have brain fog? Nope,
that is not why, let me splain.
In March of 2020, Covid hit. My employer, like
many others sent us all home immediately. We high-tailed it out of there
carrying our computers and anything else we thought we might need for a few
weeks/months of working from home. We left that place looking like a ghost town
in an old Western movie, just pieces of paper floating along in the dust and
wind.
So here it is 3 years and 9 months later and I am
still working from home. Relegated to a little corner in my bedroom where I
have just my desk, computer with double screens, and a chair. My only companion
and coworker, my daughters dog Chorizo. While Chorizo is cute as heck, she is
not much of a conversationalist, so mainly I speak with clients and occasionally
chat with a co-worker, mostly on our intranet chat program.
CHORIZO BY MY SIDE AND DOING WHAT SHE DOES BEST
Before, when I was going to the office, I
socialized, noticed things, ran across interesting stuff, and discussed it with
coworkers, other employees in the building we worked in, clients and friends.
Now I just see these 4 walls, 40 hours per week. At lunch instead of going with
coworkers to grab a sandwich or hit our favorite Mexican food place, I walk 20
feet to my kitchen to grab whatever was left over from dinner and I watch
YouTube.
Before, I knew where all the new restaurants were
opening and I would visit them with coworkers or friends, now I don’t even
remember what Chipotle and Rubio’s Fresh Grill even tasted like.
Before, when I was going to the office, I would
make plans with friends to grab the occasional Happy Hour drink, or I would stop
by my favorite stores and just wander around before going home, now I don’t
even apply make up or wear anything other than jeans and a t-shirt and slippers,
I don’t even know if I can still walk in street shoes!
Before I would look out my office window on the
second floor and watch people fighting in the parking lot, cadets marching in the
parking lot across the street where they trained police officers. I would hear
the occasional accident on the busy street our office was on and we would all
rush to whatever window offered the best view and discuss whose fault we
thought it was. I would stop and be amused by the little squirrels that lived
in the trees and sometimes would sit by my window and look in at me.
Before I was living life and finding things to
entertain me, educate me, enlighten me, anger me, thrill me, confuse me and it
was all fodder for my blog and my mind, keeping me active and “in the know.”
That is what Covid did! It took all that away from
me!
Do I want to go back to an office? Not really. I would
go back if they could figure out a way to just teleport me there, I hated the
commute which was 20 miles one way and I hated dealing with the idiots that
didn’t know how to drive and always felt that they needed to be where ever they
were going before me because they were more important than the rest of us on
the street. I like not having to apply makeup everyday and I can see that my
skin also likes it. I like not having to spend money on nice office clothing
and shoes. I like having Chorizo close by me all day, she soothes my soul with
her entitled attitude and grumpy face.
But I loved writing, I loved my little blog and I
am ready to try blogging on the regular in 2024. Not sure what I will blog
about, but maybe it will make me be more alert to things in my small town and
outside my window and will my family and in my heart and head. Where there’s a
will, there’s a way. So, keep an eye out for me in 2024 and if I start to fall
behind and get lazy, you all have my permission to call me out, you all will be
my conscience!
Happy New Year to you all and may 2024 bring us
all closer to the things that make us happy. May 2024 bring Peace to our world
and our hearts, may it bring the knowledge to cure Cancer and Diabetes and all
sorts of other diseases, may it open our eyes to the good in the world, in our
small world, in our homes. It is up to you 2024 and up to each one of us to be
kind, gentle and present.
