Hello! I hope everyone had nice holiday. I sure did. I am looking forward to saying goodbye to 2020. I know that a new year won’t make everything magically OK, but it sure will be nice to kick 2020 to the curb.
Personally, I have had a lot of ups and downs, so here it is, my summary of my own experiences in 2020:
January and February: Meh
March: Uh-oh. Obviously, this is when the coronavirus really started to hit the US. I was very worried, since I have a compromised immune system. I started to really stress out. I had an appointment with the eye doctor on March 16. I remember the doctor’s office had just started implementing safety standards, and there was a lot of hand sanitizer. Glasses that were tried on had to be put in a box they had, and they would clean every pair before they’d go back on display.
It was very bizarre and disconcerting. I did the eye exam and picked out my glasses, which they said would be ready that day at 5. So, I decided that I was going to go out shopping, but I was really hesitant, because of the concern about the virus. I ended up going to an antique store and wandering around. It was empty except for me and the employees, so I wasn’t too worried. Then I overheard them talking about maybe closing the store and being worried about everything going on. I ended up leaving, and I just sat in my car until my glasses were ready. I was just too nervous to go anywhere else.
Then, I started to think about my job and how nervous I was about just going to work. Thankfully, that week (March 18), my boss told me I could work from home. I was assigned a laptop and a giant monitor. I remember when I asked the IT person if I had everything I needed, she said “I don’t care.” So, that was fun.
Anyway, I started working from home. It was a little bumpy at first, especially since I did NOT have everything I needed. I was missing a cable to hook up the laptop to the monitor. So, for the first day, I was working on this teeny tiny laptop screen trying to design pages.
The next day, I got a perfect timing phone call. Walgreens called and left a message saying that they would offer pick-up service on items other than prescriptions. Well, I looked online, and sure enough, they had a cable I could use. I called, got it put aside for pick-up, then went and picked it up in the drive-thru. The cable could not be used on the monitor — I knew this before buying it — but it could be used on my TV.
So, I hooked up my TV to my laptop, and that’s how I worked for seven months. My “office” was in my bedroom and was a card table with a laptop and TV on it. I am extremely and forever grateful that I was able to work from home.
April: Not a good month. My cat Leo got very ill, and I had to take him to the vet. He had to stay overnight with the vet (this vet is AWESOME, and I am forever grateful to him for being that way). On the day that I was waiting to find out about Leo, I got a call from my boss who said that my job was going to be eliminated at some point. They were moving the paper to a design hub, which is centered in another state, and remote work was not an option for some completely messed up reason.
Anyway, my legs got wobbly, and the feeling I got in my body was one I shall not forget. It was too much. Too many thoughts rattled in my brain, as I was already panicking about my cat. It was not a good day.
May: I don’t really remember much. The year was so long and such a blur at the same time. My cat seemed to be getting better.
June: And then he wasn’t. My sweet cat Leo died in June. And devastated doesn’t even begin to describe how I felt. I miss him every day. But something else happened in June. I was at my lowest point of the year. My cat just died. I was going to lose my job “at some point,” and no other information had come to light on that. I was in a rut and BORED. I was depressed.
One day, a video popped up on Facebook by these dudes, Viva La Dirt League, and I laughed. And then I found their YouTube page, and I watched all their videos. And I found my escape from reality. But I also found inspiration. And I’m still not really sure how they inspired me, but they did. When I had to put Leo to sleep, lyrics from a song they did were stuck in my brain for days and days afterward, and they helped: “It’s never easy to walk away, let him go. It’ll be all right.”
Here is the first video of theirs I saw:
And I made a list of all the things I could do to get out of my rut. Update my resume and search for a job. Get a computer to get organized. Start a blog. Exercise. Diet. Streaming. Writing a book. Talking to people online. I even considered a career change and taking classes or going back to college. This ended up not being feasible because all the classes I could find were in-person only or not available at all because of the pandemic.
And at the end of June, I took the first step: Buying a computer. That is one of the best purchases I have ever made in my life.
I also spent two weeks coming up with a name for my blog. Frazzled Daisy did not just pop up in my head. It took a long time. I still think it’s a good one. And the flower that is my sig is one I grew — one of the few flowers I can actually grow.
I was going to go through the entire year, but then I looked back just now, and wow, I type a lot. Yeegh. Part two coming soon.
Until next time!
Frazzled Daisy 
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