It is now 2021, I can’t believe we made it. Covid, fires, hurricanes, tornados, killer insect, loss, an election that caused so much more stress than necessary, and racism at its worst! If all that was not enough, we all had to be quarantined for what seemed like the entire year.
At first we played lock down and we checked off the days, then we watched the world open , knowing it wasn’t time to do that, and so many people including my self lost family and friends. Then we( we as in some of us) started checking off weeks we had not been out and weeks turned to months! Please God don’t let it be years!
This past year for many was hard mentally and some more physically. I’m not going to say one or the other is more important because both are equally hard. For my self, it was both mentally and physically hard. Mentally I missed contact with people . I missed going out to eat, leisurely shopping, and just being part of the world. It was all very hard. Physically my asthma decided it needed to upgrade its part in my life and I become afraid to go out , afraid to go to the doctor. If this is what not being able to breath felt like then no way could I live through Covid. I gained weight, I stoped doing things that would get me more active. I went from the bed to the sofa most days. My biggest feat of the day was getting dressed and navigating the stairs.
This past year I had two very nice things happen, I spent 8 days with a dear friend who also was completely shut off from the world , sheltering at home. Then my dear friend from back home flew in and visited me for a week. Of course all of this was during a drop in Covid numbers and no travel restrictions were present. I worried at first but it seemed like we took all the precautions and it turned out ok.
Funny that I felt it was ok, talking about that home town friend, my best friend in the entire world, she would later “much later” come down with Covid. I spent most of fall stressing to her and to my mom the importance of mask and social distancing ( to no Avail) Thankfully my mom has avoided Covid so far. However she did not miss the hurricane.
Louisiana once again was hit pretty bad by a hurricane. Which for some reason I was supper paranoid about ( sometimes I think I have sight) totally different topic , but back to mom, she lost her home to a tree. Thank God something woke her up and she was putting clothes on to leave when the tree come down. A month or so later we find out mom needs shoulder surgery to fix a old injury. During the pre-testing for the surgery they found she had suffered a mild heart attack. I’m convinced it happened the night of the hurricane.
Covid would once again cause me much distress and frustrate me, my mom did not have a home and I really wanted her to come stay with me. On top of Covid, Fema was slow and not very helpful in helping mom replace her home. Finally after weeks someone offered mom a used trailer to put on the lot where she lived minus the trees! Even after the housing was arranged mom could not come stay, Covid now made it where we have travel bans.
This Holliday season we would not visit with my boyfriend’s (Jermey ) mom nor my good friend that lives close to his mom. We would stay home and really just wish we were with our loved ones. We did our best to spoil the kids for Christmas, and enjoy time alone. So many days alone seeing no one else, it was peaceful and eerie at the same time.
What got me through this year with out completely loosing my mind was my Telehealth therapy. I have the best therapist in the entire world. I wish she could be my friend and not my therapist, that’s how much I love her. Honestly I think most everyone needs a therapist after this year. Staying sane after this year is a big deal, because if you watch the news you will see a lot of people have gone insanely insane! I have a few tips of what helped me so I thought I’d share!
• Hobbies – if you ever had a hobby and didn’t have time for it in your busy life / bust that hobby out.
• Face time friends- As much as possible. Have long searching talks and really find out who your real friends are. (This has saved me )
• If your religious even a little – connect with your Bible , find a devotion to follow . Make it a habit to spend time in prayer for not only yourself but or world. Seek out your denomination on line and catch a Sunday service or two.
• Meditation/ breathing exercises . Breathing exercises have been a Tool I use daily and frankly out of everything / everyone the breathing exercises reduce the most stress and conflict.
• Keep a diary- try hard to list daily the things your thankful for. You will be surprised how much you can write down to be thankful for!
•exercise- I know this one is wore out, but its really the truth, try a workout on line ( so many free on You tube) or just take a walk, even if that means doing circles around your home or inside it!
I can’t promise miracles but I have tried all of these and I can promise they help.
Happy 2021 let’s be the example, be kind to each other!
Finding Evie 