Today is the final blog post I’ll contribute to the 2020 (or Pandemic or whatever name fits) series. Like that year itself, writing about 2020 could be as excruciatingly painful as it was to sit through. So the question remains. Why did I write about this lost year if for most people and myself it wasn’t worth reliving?
There’s no real clear cut answer to that question but here goes nothing.
Well, for me, the year before had its moments of sadness and tragedy. But, it also had its good moments. In Toastmasters, we had a great contest season and Spring conference and, our district was growing. I was finally enjoying my job after a decade there with friendships being built and an innocent crush toward the end of the year. That helped change the course of my life. We all had high hopes going into the next year, unaware of what lay ahead in March.
We learned a lot of new household terms that stay with us to this day. We fought politically over how the virus should have been handled, and whether or not the lockdowns should have happened. We rioted in the streets over a black man from Minneapolis getting killed. There were many things to take away from 2020, for all the wrong reasons.
There’s no 2020 left for me to discuss, as I already covered the holidays. Nationally, the beginning of the next year brought chaos in Washington DC when the Capitol was raided by a group of crazy people who felt they were cheated. For me, 2021 was the end of the era for me in so many ways. It brought a change in how I took care of myself. I turned over a new decade. Also, I left a place of employment that I had been at for over a decade. I already discussed these previously and you can scroll through the archives to learn more.
My life has changed for the better now that I’m working close to home and not putting as many miles on my vehicle to go to work. I miss the friendships made at my old job but not the travel. Next week when I go to Spring Conference will be one of the rare occurrences when I’ve traveled long distance in the post-WIS era. I remember when it used to be a regular thing to do to Washington or Johnstown.
These days long distance to me is driving to Pittsburgh or Ligonier, trips that were considered close to home for me about five years ago.
Stylish 🍒 