One year later (aka a birthday check-in)
Hello, I’m a year older today!
Quarantine started a day before my birthday last year, so a lot of the jokes I made last time was how I almost could’ve celebrated my birthday if the quarantine had started a day or two later. It was funny then because things were just starting and we were all thinking that by June, things would be back to normal and we could pause the celebrations now and wait until things are over.
But obviously, that didn’t happen, and it’s far from over.
Celebrating a second birthday in the middle of a pandemic with more cases, virus strains and a dismal pandemic response is…something. I don’t really know how how to describe it, because maybe I haven’t processed it fully yet, to be literally in the same place and almost in the same situation one year after.
It’s not to discount the blessings. I’m thankful for my job, for good health, for my parents getting their first shot of the vaccine, for easy access to resources, for things to be happy about. Thinking about this and knowing I have these makes me seem ungrateful when I feel sad about everything else, and as everyone said at the start of all of this, we are all grieving for something. And that’s right…but as my boss once told me when she checked on me, we’re all grieving for the lifestyles that we lost, and no one has any idea how to do that.
And she’s right. I’ve been trying to come to terms with that in the past month — and by “come to terms,” I mean, recognize how I am doing right at the moment. Recognize if I’m feeling sad, or angry, or out of it, acknowledge the times I feel happy and not feel bad about it. To even set boundaries, because wow, I never realized how bad I was at that before all this time I’ve been at home. Maybe it’s really having that awareness of myself, instead of busying myself all the time when there are things I don’t want to deal with.
It’s not always comfortable…but well, growth happens when we’re uncomfortable anyway. As BTS sings, life goes on.
So anyway, hello to this new year. 🙂
Reading:
One Royal Christmas by Melissa Tagg (yes a Christmas book at this time), and The Tropetastic Kindness Bundle. My reading progress is abysmal, though, like I haven’t opened my Kindle in the past weeks. 🙁 But I kind of have a good reason for this, because in the past month I’ve been immersed in…