It’s October 26th and it’s time for another life in the pandemic update. We are now almost at the end of 2020. I know it’s going to go by fast despite the fact that there’s not much difference in terms of the virus from where we started and the actual days can feel slow to me. Since my last post, there have been some good moments, but a lot of them have been stress-filled with emotional ups and downs too. I planned to write more blog posts shortly after my last one, but I suddenly became heavily affected by everything surrounding George Floyd’s death in June. The fact that his death was caught on film where everyone could see him pleading for his life while the police officer was kneeling on his neck really disturbed me to my core. I’m very sensitive to things I see/hear/watch and can’t handle a lot of violence or brutality. I was overwhelmed with pain for this man because it could have been my boyfriend who was in that situation. He died for no real reason besides being a black man. It’s still so upsetting. I know how upset everyone else was too, I could feel their pain and anger during this time. I knew it would be better to take a break and stop looking at social media but I just couldn’t think about anything else.
The other thing on my mind was a more personal issue.
Just before lockdown started, my boyfriend received news that he would be receiving a promotion he’d been wanting to get for some time but it meant that we would have to relocate to Las Vegas.
Knowing this was likely to happen but not knowing when, I was just under a lot of stress. I love living in California and most of my family and friends are here so I knew it was going to take me a while to accept this transition. Once lockdown began, the funds for any moving and new hiring at his agency were put on pause so we just had to wait for news of the move this whole time. At first, it was difficult for me to accept. Whenever I thought about leaving I wanted to cry. But as time passed over the last 6 months I feel I’m finally ready. Now we know we are going to move sometime in January and we can start to prepare for that. I’m glad that I’ll be able to spend the holidays here and it will probably be my last Thanksgiving and Christmas living in California for a while.
Also, I apologize for such a long break between my last post and this one. I’m going to try hard to be more on top of everything and not let work/current events consume my life. For the first two months of lockdown, my work schedule changed from 40 hours working 5 days to 32 hours over 4 days. Even though my hours got cut earlier, it was really nice having that extra day off and to be able to do some activities for myself. That’s honestly how I got so much work done with the blog before. But in June, I had to find time to write and post while returning to working full-time again. Clearly, I struggled with it and I feel guilty because the urge to write and share my thoughts is always there. It’s just my energy level or time management that gets in the way. Overall with this pandemic, my routine has been thrown out the window. It’s definitely been an adjustment and I’m still getting used to living this way.
My main challenge is taking time to give back to myself after spending all my working hours serving other people.
I am exhausted by the end of the day so I don’t feel like doing anything even if it’s something that I need to do for myself. But I know that’s not a sustainable way of living and the burnout eventually got to me. Some weeks were rough and I was not as productive as I should have been at work. I felt bad not being able to do as well as I normally would have and hate that I was underperforming. Overall, I was not in a good mood and started to have negative feelings towards myself.
Finally, some relief came in early September when my boyfriend and I got the chance to take a little vacation to Sedona, Arizona for his friend’s and my birthday since they were around the same time. It was a much needed getaway and I’m so grateful for it even though I was a bit nervous to travel right now. The pandemic life of staying inside all the time and being within the same four walls was definitely getting to us both. We flew there safely and did a lot of hiking and exploring in nature. I can get into all the fun details in another dedicated post about my trip.
Coming back home from that peaceful trip helped to refresh my mindset and made me feel less anxious and fearful of everything happening. I’m now much more at ease with my situation and am looking forward to whatever life in Las Vegas will be like. It should definitely be an interesting experience and I’m not fully sure what to expect. Life has felt stagnant lately so it’s a good time for a change. I know we will be visiting California often to see our family and friends so it’s comforting to know that we won’t be too far away. If necessary, we can always drive a few hours and we will be back here. Hopefully, they will visit us out in Vegas too. I’m ready for something different, to figure out my favorite new spots, explore what there is to do in Vegas and get closer to owning a home. I know life will still be a bit unusual in January since the virus will around for a while, but I think it should still be navigable. And it will be more comfortable in a bigger apartment to work from home/quarantine anyway. And I get to redecorate and rearrange furniture!! So all pretty exciting things to come. Wish me luck! Hope you all are doing okay too and not stressing about everything going on in the world!
Let’s do our best to relax, breathe and take time for ourselves especially if we have autoimmune disorders or compromised immune systems (you know what happens when we get stressed).
I’ll be sharing more tips to cope soon!
