A Coupla Things in These Foolish Things

Seems like forever since I’ve written. Can you believe it’s Christmas week?! We are almost out of this disaster of a year!

I went to work yesterday and today because I feel obligated. I’ll come again tomorrow. I’m going to lose nine days of vacation. NINE. And at first I thought it was eight, but then someone reminded me that we have a “floating holiday” that I never got to take. Had I known I was going to lose these precious days…oh, who am I kidding? I knew I’d lose these days because the end of the year is always the busiest. Soooo many retailers want to recap the holiday season to get a read on what to buy for next year’s holiday season which means I have presentations to prepare and samples to make. The requests don’t come in until November, so that means there’s no way to get ahead of this - unless I do it in the summer, which, I won’t be here come summer, so there you go.

[Manifesting better, new and fabulous career opportunity here!!]

Anyway. I have a few kinda weird (and sort of heartbreaking) updates that I’d like to share with you:

Lovely Leah’s Birthmas: Lovely has a party every year for her birthday, and because it’s so close to Christmas and everything is always decorated for Christmas and it looks so festive, she calls it her Birthmas party. It’s always tons of fun and she invites a ton of great (and sometimes weird) people and I’m always fascinated and happy to go.

This year, our friend B. hosted and she asked me if I would join the party. I told her I’d love to, but I can’t do indoor parties, thank you. B is one of those girls you see on IG partying down maskless, indoors, with a whoooole bunch of people. Like, Covid doesn’t exist to her and I can’t believe she hasn’t had it. I truly can’t.

Imagine my surprise when Lovely sent me a text telling me that B and her new BF had rented out the patio at a fancy restaurant in the burbs! It was going to be an outdoor extravaganza! …or at least a patio with heaters.

So, then I was obligated to go. And I was actually quite happy that they were doing this outside. So I made the drive up on Friday evening to have a little outdoor joy with the girls (and some boys - not single boys, but boys nonetheless).

It was a nice event, but I have to say I was still shocked by the number of people hugging, kissing and getting super close to each other without masks (because eating and drinking). I actually had to back away from people because they kept getting right in my face to talk. I ended up finding a very socially distanced spot on a sofa away from the crowd of people and talked with my friend Kelly from a distance. But even then, a guy I don’t even know came up to me and tried to hug me and another guy tried to shake my hand. And even the host came over and was like, “oh you’re that person who won’t get close to anyone…” You’re damn right, mister!

Interestingly, Kelly said that if she hadn’t already had Covid that she’d be a lot more careful. I mean…what?! So I asked her about her Covid experience and she said she’d had it in January. Um. Huh? And I asked her about how she knew - was she tested for antibodies?? No. She just knew by how sick she was back then.

Well, see. I don’t think it works like that, you know? And I was also sick in January AND was tested for the antibodies - twice - and haven’t had Covid, but whatev.

ANYWAY. I was able to get a nice, distanced chat in with the birthday girl and then they all decided to go inside and go to the cigar bar for more drinks and fun, and that’s where I had to cut out.

It made me super sad for some reason. I mean, it was nice to see friends and all, but I truly felt like a pariah and a party pooper (which is the opposite of the nickname these girls have for me, so everything was weird!

The Lonely Post: So I went home Friday evening and posted something on IG stories about people who fly solo have the strongest wings…and then I added “but I’m so tired” to the end of the post.

Maybe a few dozen people saw it and I had a couple of comments on it like, “oh, me too” and “girl, I hear you.”

But my dad saw it. He actually didn’t see it until right before it disappeared (you know how those posts disappear after 24 hours?) and he thought that I’d posted it just for a little bit and then deleted it. And he must have thought I was sending messages out to the world. Which, I was, don’t get me wrong. I was feeling soooo blue when I posted it late, late Friday night.

So he stewed for a while. And apparently, he worried about me. And that worry got so great that at 1:45am on Saturday, he called me.

Surprisingly, I saw that he was calling. I put my phone on silent most of the time and I had already been asleep for hours, but for some reason I had my phone close by and I saw that my dad was calling and of course started freaking out. WHY WOULD MY PARENTS BE CALLING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT??!!

I answered the phone and he told me he was worried because of the post. Literally thought I was doing something drastic!

And it made me just hurt to think that he was SO WORRIED about me!

Now granted. 2020’s been a year, right? And most of us are having bouts of depression, right? At least I know that I am. I’ve been so fucking weary at the end of this year and pissed off by people who just don’t seem to give a fuck. You know?

I’ve even sobbed to my parents. A 53-year-old woman crying to her mommy and daddy over this. But I was sooooo sad to think that my dad was freaking out over a damn IG post that he thought was a cry for help.

Ughhh. What a year, man.

Lower Gut Stuff: To make matters worse, on Saturday I woke with a sudden urge to use the bathroom. I’ll spare you the gory details, but let’s just say I was literally planning a trip to the hospital, thinking I was dying. Truly. Long story that turned into a long day. I talked myself off the ledge and then I had to use the bathroom again and worked myself right back into a frenzy. Sent a text to my doc asking him to please call me and he talked me off the ledge again but by that time my blood pressure had spiked and I actually had a nose bleed while we were talking on the phone!

I’m watching myself closely and things seemed to have calmed down, but uggghhh. Nothing like a big, fat, lower intestinal issue to ruin your whole, whole weekend. I stayed in bed for much of Saturday just feeling my age and my mortality. Have you ever done that?

End on a Sunny Note: And then Sunday was spectacular. I was beyond happy for a lovely day, so I took the longest walks with the dog and decided to do a #treespotting series of posts on my IG stories, knowing that my dad would look at it and know that I was feeling much, much better.

I did feel so much better just getting out into the sunshine and getting my blood flowing again. There’s truly nothing like walking in sunshine and drinking in the fresh air.

Life is good again.
Until next entry…LOVE!
GS