Beth's Journal

I swear, I am so ready to be done with 2020.

• Rana may have caught COVID - we're not entirely sure, because whenever she's been tested recently, they can't get the swab up as far as they should due to swelling from her nose surgery last month. Still, the symptoms line up, and she hasn't been anywhere near as careful as she should be, so it's probably COVID. (I swear, I didn't need any more Rana-related health crises this year...) In addition to Rana catching COVID, so did one of my co-workers, and two close friends have been exposed to it. Stay the hell at home, people. (although I'm probably preaching to the choir here)
• My mental health has been up and down a bit lately - I'm still trying to walk/run regularly, and make sure I do something creative daily (even if it's just crocheting), and it's... sort of helping? Maybe I need to add regular journal-writing to my "try to keep yourself sane" list.
• Found out we're working from home through the end of the spring semester - which means it'll have been over a year since I'd worked in the office regularly by the time I get to go back. I don't know how I feel about this. Hell, there are still co-workers I haven't seen in person since March. (And due to the "work at home through spring" notice, I kind of get the feeling that I'll get to celebrate another birthday in isolation - fuck 2020 and all the bullshit that came out of it.)

I try to look on the bright side of things, but it's hard sometimes. Still, I do have my health, and a safe place with very few people around to go walking and running, and I live with people who actually give a crap about my mental health. My life is going pretty well, considering everything going on - and if my brain hadn't been so much of a dumpster fire this year, I think I'd actually be pretty well off, pretty happy.

Buuuut 2020 had to happen, and so here I am, angry at all the selfish folks who can't be bothered to wear masks and wash their hands and stay the fuck at home because they'd rather go eat out at Cracker Barrel and pretend life is normal - after all, they're the only people in the world who matter, didn't you know? Fuck everyone else, Karen's gotta have her brunch! /sarcasm

Yeah. I think I might be experiencing the stages of grief out of order here, because I've gone from denial to depression to acceptance to anger.

I've only been awake for two hours and have already cried into my breakfast because of a post a friend of mine made on Facebook where he talked about how he's been feeling for the past few months, and we're essentially experiencing the same things (heightened anxiety, jealousy/anger at people just ignoring safe protocols to spend time with people outside their house/pretending things are normal, generally a hot mess). I just want to go hug him and tell him he's not alone, but he's in freakin' Kentucky and I'm in Indiana and there's a pandemic raging on, soooo...

Yeah. I don't think today's going to be a good day.

Holy crap, it's been four whole years (give or take) since I last posted in here. I knew it had been a while, but I didn't quite realize just how long it had been. Do I even still have friends here?

And damn, things have changed.

Like, where do I even start? What do I talk about? That I learned how to drive a few years ago, and finished my dual masters degree program too? The fact that I'm going through another divorce and I'm not even 40 years old yet? The goddamned pandemic and how much of a raging dumpster fire that is?

Damn. I seriously don't know. What I do know, though, is that this poor old journal is a bit dusty and needs a bit of cleanup. For one thing, I could probably use some new user icons. And a new journal theme. And maybe I should tweak my profile a bit.

Yeah, I think that's where I'll start. I'll talk more about the ridiculous stuff that's gone on in my life later on - first, I need to do a little work on my journal space.

Here's hoping I can actually stick with posting regularly this time around.