Alright, folks. I'll admit to some smugness at the beginning of the pandemic. While all my extrovert friends were bemoaning the lack of interpersonal contact and their inability to cram into bars and restaurants and glad-hand and whatever, I was in my comfort zone, happily cocooned in my house with my two favorite people and my least-favorite pet, and things were fine.
I read a lot, I didn't gain any weight, I saved money, I had big ideas, I cooked more, etc. Things were great through the summer, when I could take long walks in my new neighborhood and sit on the patio and work in my home office with the door open. I stayed reasonably fit, I got more sleep than I had in years, I grew my hair out, I cooked even more, I wrote a TON, I got married.
And then it got cold and my life became burned-out hellscape of gray weather, absolute fucking cold ALL THE TIME, I gained 15 pounds and this whole growing out my hair thing turned into a nightmare. I started crying all the time (except when I was yelling at people), my body hurt everywhere, and the goddamn dog just. won't. quit. licking himself while sitting behind my desk.
In other words, I hit the wall. Hard.
With the holidays over and nothing to look forward to (normally, the first half of the year is heavy travel time for me, with a trip or two every month to someplace warm, or interesting or at least NOT MY FUCKING LIVING ROOM), I've kind of lost my grip on my happiness. And I'm not going to pretend that this is one of those "but then it got better" blogs where I tell you I picked up some fabulous new hobby (like I have the time or money for THAT), or learned a new meditation trick. Nope, I'm still pretty miserable. (And my dog is still sitting right behind my chair, but now he's gnawing on a giant noisy bone.)
Maybe, by the time this is published in a week, I'll have found some new reserve or a new perspective or lost 40 pounds, but until such time, I'm just going to keep pushing. I'm going to haul my ass out of bed in the morning, meditate, work as much as I can, try to get in physical activity of some sort, and work on not hating myself and my life so much.
The only way out is through.