2020: Real Results - More Gray AND Less Hair!

 

I got gas in my car for the first time in 7 months today.  I put only 301 miles on my car from mid-March 2020 to October 13^th 2020… [My wife and I have been using her car for some drives, but we’ve probably only filled her car up about 4 or 5 times in that same period.]  The bottom line is, we’ve traveled very little, gone very few places.  We have had more time together than ever before, so that’s a blessing mixed into a very difficult and mentally-damaging year.  As parents we do our best to shield our son from the exhaustion and frustration, disappointments and fears that have befallen so many in 2020, but he still knows what’s going on – I think that’s a good thing, maybe he’ll be going to college when he’s 15 – sadly it may be virtual so he’ll still be ‘making friends’ with spiders and birds…

I needed to get gas in my car because I was asked to be at the office for only the 3^rd time since March – nearly everyone else returned to the office well before it was even okayed by the powers that be so of course I look like the idiot or “scared sheep” that, I guess I am.  I’m still not sure what’s safe and what’s not, but I’m tying to be smart and not endanger myself and my family as well as others.  We’ve seen my parents twice in this time and my sister and her family once – looking forward to finally seeing my brother and his family for a brief outdoor gathering in a couple of weeks.  Most will probably think we’re fools to have not resumed our normal lives at this point, but others will think we’re risking our lives unnecessary and the reality seems to be that we very well could be… what do you do?

Thankfully we’ve been healthy and had a very nice Spring and Summer (weatherwise) so we expanded our son’s interests in the outdoors and going on ‘adventures.’ Those hikes throughout Northwestern New Jersey’s beautiful state and county parks have been one of the only things smoothing over the extreme wrinkles in the fabric of our mental health, but haven’t always been enough – there have been tears in that fabric and there will be scars forever for sure.

I said my wife and I have done our best as parents, that’s true – hopefully we’re doing a good job.  Our son is mostly very happy, although he’s pretty disobedient, but he is 3… He’s very loving and compassionate and understands just about everything that’s going on and is learning to read and spell with only Mom and Dad as teachers so far.

I’m not confident that we’ve been doing the best we can as spouses, I’m sure we are both to blame for different parts of that situation, but the easy items to focus on are out of our control – the ongoing situation with COVID (“Covid-19 Pandemic” as our mature 3 year old calls it) has eliminated many opportunities for us to go places, do things, have a baby sitter, or get together with friends and family – ALL of those pieces create a mismatched puzzle of a worn-out, exhausted, fragile relationship, but just like a fireman that has to use the bathroom as he battles a blaze, we cannot easily just take a break at this very-long-moment-in-time.

It’s hard because we think and feel we’re doing the right thing, but then we see others getting back to normal, we see the school bus go by knowing we un-enrolled our son from Preschool because of the strict changes that would be imposed that we felt would not provide the environment for a ‘normal’ foundation for his introduction to school and socialization with kids (ie: NO SHARING!?)  We hear of and see large family gatherings and think ‘those people are crazy’ but at the same time wonder if WE are the ones that are crazy – I’m sure you feel and know most of these schizophrenic emotions as well or have felt them at least a few times throughout this year.

Then there’s the feeling of abandonment – ok, maybe we can’t get together right now, er – it’s at least safer not to, but we can still keep in touch, right?  Early on in this, we were all “in this together” until you found either a way to feel better or the few you really wanted to be “in this” with.  If you plotted communications – emails, texts, phone calls, etc. on a bar graph, it would correlate almost perfectly with the covid cases that are displayed on the news every night – as the cases came down and people returned back their whatever normalcy they could, the outreach lessened – I guess that shouldn’t be a surprise, people are busy, dealing with a lot as well as no longer in need of the additional connection that the long-distant-touch provided… but then those of us who weren’t back to normal or couldn’t be, either physically, emotionally, or both, had a new dip in their serotonin levels and experienced our own “second wave.” I guess hearing from some at some point is better than not hearing from those that not only didn’t reach out, but didn’t even take the time to respond to messages! (true story).

My wife and I did finally get the confidence to take our son to the beach as well as do some outdoor dining in public and recently went apple picking and pumpkin picking. Without those activities before the cold months and/or an actual new wave of cases and restrictions/closures, I think our condition would be even more grave than it is.

And we’re lucky when you think of it – getting to spend more time together (even if “challenging balance” is an understatement), we’ve been healthy, most of our extended family have been healthy as well, however we’ve been robbed of our usual opportunities to be with them, to hug them, to catch up and enjoy time together … so then I start dwelling on the negative again.

I’ve thought about just regurgitating all of the disappointments and losses we’ve experienced this year so many times, but each time I’ve reconsidered because I know most don’t want to hear about others’ negativity or complaints.  Warning, I’m about to do just that now.

2020 began very well for my family – we’d had a beautiful holiday season, spent a lot of time with our families and friends and had a lot of ‘events’ to look forward to throughout the Spring and Summer.  Like everyone else all of that (and more) were cancelled and ripped from our hopes and dreams.  Yes, I do realize that we’re not alone here, in fact I think EVERYONE experienced this to some level and again, I do understand that some lost everything – their lives; the life of a loved one; jobs or financial security; etc.  I should stop there, right?  Who am I to complain or feel I am a victim when others were REAL VICTIMS, but we have lost a lot in our world – literally, metaphorically, physically, and mentally…

One big one I already mentioned – our 3 year old was supposed to begin preschool this year and we were so excited for him to make friends and improve his socialization.  This would also have meant my wife could finally have a few hours a day back for herself.  We made the difficult to decision to cancel all of that goodness and it truly was tough and sad – our son knew school was starting soon and he was asking about it and looking forward to it.  For now the outdoor story time at the library remains what he thinks of as school.

Another big loss for us was all of the time we normally spend with our family, Easter dinner together and the fun activities for the cousins to enjoy together with parents and grandparents, the vacation to my wife’s sister’s house on a lake in Maine (and all of the activities on the water that our son would have enjoyed more than ever!), the annual family reunion in Massachusetts (the only time we see most of the family on my father’s side), and all of the mini weekend trips down to my parents to relax and enjoy quality Grandma and Grampa time… No vacations, no trips, none of those experiences that help you recharge and take a deep breath as you reflect on why you work…

Then there is work.  Every project and trade show, every opportunity I had to make a big impact on a company I’ve only been with for a little over a year were erased.  I was scheduled to attend an event that would have tied the previous industry I worked in to the current company I work for, but that event was cancelled and all networking opportunities gone.  I had been able to arrange for LL Bean to use the company’s logo in a catalog shoot, but that shoot was cancelled and the opportunity lost.  Then there’s just the mere fact that I’m ‘foolishly’ taking the pandemic seriously, thus I’m not in the office and so appear to not be present no matter how many hours I work from home which is clearly slowing or stalling any progress in impressing my employer and the chances of career development and growth.

If you’re still reading you probably know I’m a writer and have published my first novel – a spy thriller… Some do know about it, however ALL of my promotional events, book signings, author events, and library appearances were cancelled.  This literally halted my book sales and opportunities to build momentum with the marketing of my book.  I went from dozens of sales per month to zero sales per month. . . That’s a real hard one, because that is more than 10 years of work and passion in 171 pages and this was going to be the year I was able to share it with the world.  My additional 3 months of planning and coordination of the events was even more in vain as they were cancelled one by one.  I am hopeful that some of them will eventually be rescheduled, but in the meantime it’s almost like I never wrote the book.

Then there are things I want to write, but cannot bring myself to share even in this forum of my deepest thoughts brought to the surface.  Losses that for the time being we are doing our best to deal with, but not really doing much to deal with them…

I wrote this in hopes of reaching some level of catharsis, but just like most things the more you force something to happen the less likely it is to occur.  It does feel good to organize my feeling and emotions of self-pity and mourning over what has been a rough and tough year, but it also helps to always realize what blessings you do have and try to focus on those as much as possible.