Creation in the Time of COVID
I was so ready for 2020 to be the year I got things done.
I spent the last few months of 2019 planning out the next year. It was going to be the “Year of Structure” and I was finally going to get the four pillars of my life (family, work, health, and writing) into a balance that I could maintain.
And the year started out pretty good as well. By February, I had a diet plan (intermittent fasting with a focus on eating more plants and less meat) in place and I was exercising on a pretty regular basis (DDP Yoga is actually really good). I pulled the current draft of my novel up and I was making notes on how to fix it. And the family were making plans of all the things we wanted to do this summer when Chicago thawed. There are so many museums, show, restaurants, and shops to explore in the city and we had a plan to explore a good chunk of the,
And then March happened, COVID exploded and went blew up all my plans.
Well, maybe not all of them. I will say that my health has been one place where I have done well this year. I’m still doing the IF and honestly, I don’t miss breakfast that much. And I find days that I exercise are some of the days I feel best about myself. I’m down nearly fifty pounds this year and that is not nothing.
But the rest of my plans have been destroyed. Work has become a wait and see proposition most of the time. All of my projects were put on hold at the start of the pandemic, and now we are slowly ramping them all back up and I am juggling a full year’s work in just under a quarter. Fun.
Obviously, family outings are at a minimum these days. My son and I did get a chance to run away to the woods for a few days in June, but other than that we have not really gone or done anything in the city. We have been spending so much time inside this summer that the weekly visits to the Farmer’s Market feel like a massive road trip.
And then there is the writing. It’s strange, because I have the ideas. I have a whole Google Keep document with ideas and little scenes that I want to put into the book. And I have the time (see above on lack of outings). But every time I sit down to write, I feel this large weight hanging over me. Part of it is that it just feels silly to be spending my time building up a fantasy world when the current world is on fire with everything that is going on. The other part, and likely the larger part is that I’m just so tired. I, like so many other, feel like this year has been dragging on for the last twenty years in a slow march towards destruction. And so, when I try to sit down and write anything It feels so pointless and I’m so tired that I often decide to just watch a Twitch streamer or play some Fall Guys or anything else that will let me just forget about the world for a few minutes.
But yesterday when Candice and I were walking her dog and getting a little bit of time outside and in the sun, I noticed that the leaves are starting to change colors and littering the sidewalks. Fall is just around the corner and 2020 is heading towards to off ramp. And while I am happy that my health is getting better, I haven’t really created anything this year.
Depression is something that I often struggle with. Luckily, most of the time it is not super bad, I still get up and do my exercises, go to work, pay my bills, and spend time with loved ones. But in 2020 that haze is becoming a static that tends to block everything. Creating, be it my stories, a new D&D adventure or even just a new Magic deck has always been a way to help keep depression at bay, but I haven’t been creating anything in months. Which brings us here, to a website that I have been meaning to make for a while and to a blog that allows me to create short little works that I can get out into the world.
So here is the plan as of right now:
1) At least one post a week on this blog for the rest of the year.
2) Topics on this blog will be varied, no rules as to what I will post about. Music, video games, books that I am enjoying. All fair game. I just want to get something up and out into the public sphere in a timelier fashion.
3) Comments. I am thinking I will open the comments on these blog posts, as I would like to be a bit more social these days. But that is still in the back of my mind.
So, we have a plan. Granted, it’s a bit vague and a little nebulous right now. But hey, 2020 has been a mess of a year and any progress is good in my book. So, let us see where this goes, shall we?