It’s ok to not be ok. I hereby welcome you to my Pity Party.
I saw a tweet the other day that said “physically i am two days away from july, emotionally i am still processing February.” This could not be any more real. Like… what the F*&K happened to 2020?? I looked at the calendar the other day and I was like wow… back in January, WHO WOULD HAVE THUNK?!
And here’s the thing, there are a lot of terrible things going on in the world. There is a police brutality crisis, mass incarceration, unemployment, world hunger, and Russian dictators putting bounties on American soldiers. Not to mention 503K deaths worldwide from Covid, and more every day.
But you know what else is going on? NOTHING. At least in my life. And to be completely honest, I have good days and bad days. Last weekend? A lot of bad days. But I had ice cream, which made it a little bit better.
I’m in mourning for the year I thought I was going to have. I had really high hopes! I had goals to visit three new countries. Remember traveling? Another goal: to go to 100 bootcamp classes. Ya know, at the gym. Remember those? And another goal: To book hair for 2 weddings. Remember weddings? Where people attended IRL and got their hair done?
Speaking of weddings, how about mine?
This is usually around the point where I start to unravel. Not to be overly dramatic, but my entire plan for my life has come undone at this point. And yes, I know it’s only been 4 months of quarantine (so far), but the reality is, we have a LONG road ahead of us. No vaccine on the horizon, no idea when it will be released. When it is, will it be safe? Will it be unfathomably expensive? Will it be widely available? Should it be? We won’t know the long-term side effects; we won’t really know what side effects there are at all. Will you even feel comfortable taking it? And how long until we do feel comfortable? What happens in the meantime?
Back to my life plan – it’s out the window at this point. I feel like Rachel from Friends when she turns 30. (That whole clip is worth watching, by the way.)
In Rachel’s words, “I realized it was stupid to get upset about not having a husband and kids, all I really needed was a plan!” Well we all know what they said about the best laid plans. If you guys don’t watch the clip, the gist is that she wants three kids, starting to have the first one at 35 so she counts backward from there and… spoiler alert, she is already too old for her own plan.
I’m not going to say I live by the Rachel Green’s plan, but the annoying part about this whole pandemic is that a LOT of things have been postponed. Weddings can be pushed off, travel can be rescheduled, engagement parties, brunches, celebrations of all kinds. But you know what Rachel had right? Time marches on and fertility still has an expiration date. Wtf!
Now, this is not a blog about having a baby, and I’m not having one right now anyway, but I’d like to have time before I do. Time to travel without kids. Time to enjoy my engagement. Time to celebrate it. Time to plan a wedding and actually visit venues, to have the opportunity see them with my own eyes. Time to enjoy Girls Nights Out.
When we got engaged, for the three glorious weeks post-engagement and pre-pandemic, people asked if we had a wedding date. (Why? I have no idea. Don’t do that, guys.) Anyway, when I said we didn’t, invariably they said, “That’s great! That’s fine! Enjoy your engagement! It’s the best time.”
Is this “enjoying our engagement?” Is it “the best time?” Living in a house that is not our own, halfway across the country, without the ability to go out on dates, have an engagement party, show off my ring, see my parents? I can’t even get my nails done to show my ring off on Instagram!
So yeah, I’m not ok. Not today, at least. I spent the last three days watching TV and trying to forget real life. It didn’t really work but the ice cream was good. I realize that things could be worse. We are lucky to be employed, safe, healthy, etc. But sometimes I need to throw myself a pity party. Y’all are invited to the next one. It’ll be on Zoom. BYO ice cream.
