2020. What a difficult year full of strife, hate, division, lies, anger, loss, loneliness, stress, busyness, boredom, struggle, and pain. Last year was full of looking to social media for distraction, only to leave feeling worse – more lonely, more depressed, more inadequate. Last year, we spent more time at home and less time with other people.
Last year, all the shit hit the fan.
Continue readingPeople, wear a freaking mask! If you aren’t worried about getting COVID-19, sure, whatever. Be recklessly cavalier about your own health. But don’t be cavalier about the health of the people around you!
Continue readingToday I got tested for COVID-19 and, while I had planned to bring a book to read while I waited, I forgot my book at home. Being too prideful to be one of those people who stares at their phone the whole time they’re in a line, I forced myself to stand for an hour and a half, noticing the things around me. (Phones have become our crutches; they help us avoid conversations with strangers in lines who could potentially become friends! They keep us from being in the here and now. Well, perhaps they keep us in the now, but not in the here. And while the elsewhere and now is also important, the here and now is vital. But that’s another topic for another post, another day.)
Continue readingToday I came to a realization: In a month, I will be thirty, and yet in 29 and eleven twelfths years, I have never been asked on a date in person. I have been asked out via phone call, Facebook message, text message, and dating app messaging. But never has a guy walked up to me and said, “Would you like to get dinner with me some time?” I always thought it would be great to be asked out in person. You’re in the same room with them and you can see their facial expressions while you realize that they like you enough to spend some time with you. After musing about my realization, I thought perhaps a deciding factor in whether or not I should marry someone in the future should be how he asked me on our first date. If it wasn’t in person, perhaps I should just say no. But that’s just setting myself up for life as a spinster whose best option is to marry foolish Mr. Collins, the man who somehow thinks condescension from a great lady is a thing to boast to every person in the room.
In a few weeks, I will be twenty-eight years old. Twenty-eight and still single. Always single.
So I took that courageous first step: I quit my job. I turned in my two-week notice and hoped beyond hope that I hadn’t made a stupid decision. I felt stupid walking away from a job without another one lined up, but I suddenly felt so very free to go for my dreams again, to be me – artsy, creative, unique, interesting. But unemployment is no man’s friend. Not only are you not earning money, you are stuck at home way too much, you have no money to go adventuring (unless, of course, your previous job was lucrative and you were a good saver), and you feel down in the dumps about your worth as a person. You spend so much time writing applications about how wonderful you are at everything, only to get turned down over and over again. It’s exhausting!
Soar with Laughter 