Hello lovelies and happy Friday! As you can see, I actually blogged this week, something that made me very happy. It’s hard sometimes to come back to doing a thing after being away from it, even if it’s a thing you enjoy. And I wasn’t gone for that long, but just long enough that it felt a bit difficult at first. I had tried to keep up with at least a few things here and there, mostly Teaser Tuesdays and WWW posts because those are easy and don’t take too much thought. Thinking is hard these days.

Truthfully, I’m going through a bit of a tough time. This past year has been hard on everyone and I hate to complain because I’ve been very, very lucky. None of my immediate family has gotten COVID. The friends that I have that did get it were able to recover. My husband and I were able to keep our jobs, although he worked from home for a time (which was a whole other challenge). I kept going to work every day and in some ways my daily routine barely changed. The only thing that was different was the pervading sense of dread that lingered over everything.

I started to hate being around people any more than I had to, my social anxiety rising to levels I hadn’t seen since my teens. I resented anything that made me leave my house, from my job to errands to anything. At the same time, I knew how fortunate I was so I didn’t want to complain. It seemed so insensitive when there were people who were losing loved ones or their livelihoods or both. So I bottled it up. Pretended like everything was fine. Went on with my life.

I think I am reaping the effects of the bottling. My mental health has been absolutely horrible. I can fake it through my work day (which is short, since I’m only working part-time these days), but by the time that’s over, I am spent. What’s weird is that my social anxiety has also overflowed into social media, which had never happened before. Other times, as long as I wasn’t face to face, I could communicate. I have always been better at the written word than the spoken one – more time to think about what I’m saying and better odds that I can hide my awkwardness. I still check my socials, Facebook and Twitter being the most common ones, but it’s hard for me to post or comment on other people’s posts anything other than something generic or superficial. As you can probably imagine, this has impacted blogging a bit too, although not quite as bad.

I’m trying to see the light at the end of the tunnel. As of last week, I am fully vaccinated, as is almost all of my family – my daughter is the last one left. She’s still homeschooled so not in as much danger of coming in contact with the virus and in our state, she is now able to sign up for an appointment. Things are starting to open up just a bit so I might be able to see my theater friends again soon. And I know that eventually I will be fine. It’s just hard to maintain a positive attitude sometimes when the rest of the world seems really dark and scary.

This has turned into a rambling personal post that’s pretty depressing but hey, this is my little corner of the Internet, so I guess it’s okay. I do want to say that I am very grateful to everyone here who takes the time to read my posts and follow my blog. When I can post, you are all a bright spot in my day. Have a wonderful weekend and I will see you all Monday. Hugs to you all!

Categories: Weekly Wrap-Up