However much it was a kick in the face to read my decade wrap up for 2010-2020 and at the end see – “2020 - I am beyond excited about everything that's coming up ❤”, ironically while my life did change in 2020, for me, not much of it was due to COVID. For me it’s not possible to just “think of the positives” because it’s about balance for me – I have to also reflect on the hard stuff too.
We opened the year (New Year’s Eve night/morning) with one of Dred’s seizures.
They had been under control, but then from about Christmas out, he had about
one a week. Dan had surgery on January 3rd – fixing some
aftereffects of his cancer treatment (cancer btw is still staying GONE). After
2.5 years of trying to continue with life as normal when my husband had been
diagnosed (and dealing with) cancer, I had a mini breakdown – that hardly
anyone noticed because I’d just gone through surgery on January 15th
myself, so it was expected that I retreated from life for 3+ weeks for my own
recovery. My mom was my rock, and her flying into town really enabled me to let
go for awhile and just recharge.
The week before I was scheduled to go back to work, a friend
helped drag me out of my bed and we went to my very first dog show – we got to
see the Ibizans and we even met someone new! It was so much fun. Two days later
the Chiefs won the Superbowl, and Dred had his final seizure. My doberboy, my
friend, my favorite working companion was gone. Not even 5 weeks later, we lost
Da’shain – my friendly, happy, fun dog who never acted his age his entire life,
up until it was time for us to let him go.
This was all pre COVID. Not even a week after we lost Da’shain, we
were sitting at The Habit with friends – it was the night that the NBA
announced it was canceling/postponing the season – and we all wondered how
things would change. None of us could have ever foreseen that in 2021 the COVID
numbers are still rising. The following weekend we went to a friend’s birthday
get together and had a lot of fun with a lot of people – it was the largest
gathering we went to in 2020.
That same weekend Kroger (the company I work for) worked overtime
to send all of their office people home to work – my department got busier than
we are even during the holidays, and it didn’t let up until….maybe October,
when it started getting busy for the holidays again. Because I already work
from home, that wasn’t an adjustment for me, except the house felt empty as we
were missing two dogs. Then in April the courts closed and Dan was sent to work
from home. That was another adjustment…workflow changes, shopping changes, but
nothing big. We still both had jobs, I wasn’t worried about mine, and Dan was
only slightly worried about getting furloughed (which never happened). The courts
are open now (the huge debate about the miscarriage of justice aside), but Dan
still mainly works from home.
Although we weren’t going out – we did Fry’s Clicklist/Pickup for
all of our grocery shopping, and we weren’t having our big, fun get togethers –
in May I got to settle into a “normal” routine and got to keep getting out of
the house. I taught canine swimming/dock diving for the second year in a row
and got out of the house two nights in a row, every week from May – September,
and only took the week of July 4th off. Everyone was masked up, and
it’s an outdoor pool, so social distancing was easy – and mostly easy to forget
COVID and just have fun with the dogs.
In June, when COVID was getting really bad in Arizona, we fled for
a week to visit family in Idaho – of course taking care to self-evaluate and be
careful on the road. What was super strange was no gas stations had the stores
open at night – so finding a restroom was…not fun. For a little while we were
able leave the “real world” behind and just have fun hiking on the Christmas
tree farm with Zin (and Dare too).
Work was also going through massive changes – completely unrelated
to COVID, that had been put on hold because of COVID for a few months. But they
delayed no longer, and in June/July the reorganizing started. With this on top
of the normal COVID anxiety, life was super stressful. Ultimately though, the
changes at work ended up being amazing for me. I’m in a brand-new position,
that I completely LOVE and it’s fantastic – even if I do work two hours earlier
than I used to (early AM starts and I are not friends). This change also led my
working days shifting; for fourteen years I worked Sunday – Thursday and as of
12/20 I am now Monday – Friday (haven’t worked a Friday yet, haha).
August through December were kind of lost in a blur. September, I
had a milestone birthday that my friends and family managed to make amazing,
despite COVID (yay tacos, video messages, surprises, and custom cakes!). I also had a terrible allergic reaction to something and ended
up turning a year older in the hospital. NO MORE WALNUTS, KATHERINE. October
seemed to fly then Halloween weekend I had several medical issues pop up, that
we’re still working on figuring out. This includes learning that the major
surgery I went through in January was great, but those same issues are
happening again.
While we haven’t been to a movie since Bad Boys For Life, we’ve
had watch parties with good friends – Extraction was boring, The Old Guard was
super fun, and WW84 was so bad we were all mocking it the entire time.
What else? In late 2019 I had approached the dog training facility
we know I love and asked about apprenticing to teach obedience classes, not just
the dock diving I do. In January of 2020 I started shadowing Basic Obedience classes,
and while COVID threw a wrench in the timing – I am starting my own first class
this month!
I feel like I’m only now raising my eyes from my book and coming
out of a haze. As usual there’s so much more that didn’t make it into the story.
Like how I almost brought home a Sloughi puppy. And there could be an entirely
separate post about how I feel that my boys (my dogs) tether my soul to this
plane (yes, very philosophical). I lost two dogs in under five weeks and was
adrift for so long (still am). There are many things I’m looking forward to in
2021, yet I’m more wary than ever of writing them into the story before I’m
beyond sure that they’re happening. “I know my apprehensions might never be
allayed, and so I close, realizing that…the ending has not yet been written.” -
Myst
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