…I don’t love that title, to be honest. “Connecting with myself” sounds so much more… ethereal than I feel. It’s what I’m going with though because pandemic brain is a thing and it’s kicking my butt a bit today.
Every year I learn more about myself and grow more comfortable with myself, but this year was like a pressure cooker — it dialled that up to eleven and really made me learn some things. Whether I wanted to or not.
For example, I’m definitely a hobbit.
I mean, I always knew I had hobbit-y tendencies (and I don’t just mean about being rather round with hairy toes) but man… this year erased all doubt. Faced with the prospect of not travelling at all, I just snuggled in. My husband and I shifted our vacation savings into home-improvement savings, and made a few quality-of-life changes around the house. And then we just embraced the fact that for the foreseeable future mostly we were just going to see each other. He really shifted his leisurely focus to exercise and working out, but I — hobbit that I am — instead focused on comforts.
I’ve been crocheting and quilting for forever, but on a cyclical cycle. Sometimes I crochet. Sometimes I quilt. Sometimes I do other stuff… with the pandemic I just doubled-down on blanket making. I’ve been spending my weekends quilting and my evenings crocheting. There’s something about making and gifting blankets that hits me right in the feels. It’s like, “Here, take this thing which will keep you warm and know I put myself into it too. Because I love you.”
(At the beginning of the pandemic my crocheting almost felt like a magic spell. I had a mantra going through my head with every stitch. A wish that I can’t repeat lest it not come true but which I literally thought with every stitch. It was like casting a magic spell, a protective magic spell. Related: Another thing I learned about myself this year is that even when it comes to things which aren’t hockey-related I’m actually much more superstitious than I’d have thought.)
Our meals also became… odd. I prepare most of the dinners in our home and for some reason I started to fall on either the ‘Ridiculously over-thought, complicated and schmancy’ or the ‘Let’s just order delivery’ end of the meal spectrum. That middle ground? The place I assume is probably best for most of your meals to come from? It’s like it totally disappeared.
It was very weird.
But then, moderation has never been my forte, so maybe that’s why it disappeared. Under pandemic pressure I just reverted to my core self which is kind of ‘All or nothing’.
Anyway, I’m starting to ramble — which is another thing I’ve noticed myself doing more since the pandemic came to my life — so I’m going to end this there. As we slowly make our way out of the shadow of COVID, though, I’m excited to be able to eventually look back at this year, at the changes I made (or didn’t), the things I did (or didn’t), and really sort of dig into them to see what they mean (if anything). Self-discovery is a perpetual journey, right? And this year has been one hell of a stress test…
I wish I had a clever segue to offer here to get us from ‘Yay, self-discovery!’ to ‘Also there’s a fundraiser!’ but… I’m coming up short. So:
Also, there’s a fundraiser! And we’ve surpassed our goal of $1,000, check it out!
Whoot whoot! And the best part is that there’s still time for us to run that total up!
Last year we raised $1,355. I was thinking that if we raised even a dollar more than that this year it would be like a big ole middle finger to COVID-19 and that would be a wonderful way to end the year, don’t you think?
If you can help please donate here.
And if you can’t help monetarily, signal boosting is also super helpful and appreciated 🙂
Because this is a blog tour there are other stops you can visit today as well.
Paula Johanson has a post about the tour on her blog, and Alexandra Seidel has blogged about some of the upsides and downsides to digital connections over physical ones.
