The Coronacation Diaries, Episode 99

All the Things I Did and Did Not Do

I'm just gonna put this right here and move on: I have not yet cleaned my desk.

I know that I said that I was going to, that it was on the short list somewhere around blog post #5, but it still hasn't happened. I also haven't unpacked the boxes from the great house remodel of 2018.

I have, however, managed to run 3 miles without stopping. It took 45 minutes, or the amount of time it would take to walk 3 miles quickly, but I ran it. I can run 3 miles. This is a thing.

I also can do a chaturanga. I did 4 of them in my circuit training tonight.

I did not finish the 30 day yoga challenge. Daughter from another mother and I got to day 18 and then she ended up with a (totally unrelated) stress fracture. I really want to yoga, intellectually, but I haven't figured out how to get that back into some sort of routine. It's been 99 days and I'm on day 18. I can't claim this one as a win.

 I have established that I write best in my front yard. I have also established that I currently have 32 mosquito bites.

After 3 months sheltering in place, I am closer to my daughter and to my daughter from another mother than I was before this all begin. This is priceless.

I still fight every day with my son. I have a lot of work to do.

I got the garden in before Memorial day. It remains to be seen whether or not anything will grow.

I have tried 7 different brands of hard seltzer. Corona wins. Ironic?

Photo by Leon Biss on Unsplash

I have written 99 blog posts. Some of them have been really good. Some of them have been kinda lame. But I haven't had to post the one I wrote and kept in reserve about mashed potatoes. I've managed to write 99 posts without including the mashed potatoes post. And no, I wasn't drunk when I wrote it.

I have written a lot about Black Lives Matter, about white privilege, about what it means to be white in our country today. And I've gained a lot of readers and a lot of shares. I thinks that we can maybe be part of a movement, a movement of white people, who act for the greater good. I think, maybe, that our voices can make a difference. I think that we can get our heads out of the sand and really work for positive, productive change.

I also lost a union election in my job and I gained a position facilitating the CRWP Remote Literacy Learning Institute. I'm still processing this one, but I know that, in the long run, the people who walk in this world much in the way that I want to walk, they are the people with whom it isn't a popularity contest. I think I maybe came out a winner, even though that loss was incredibly hard.

I did not lose 20 pounds, as planned. Instead, I gained 19. I have to figure this one out.

I have thrown the squeaky hotdog for the dog 1,435 times. I also figured out how to groom him, but I did not figure out how to trim his nails.

I drove to Florida to adopt a cat and ended up spending a week with my dad, getting to know the man who did not raise me, but who always loved me.

I have learned that, although our relationship is not one based on Hallmark movies and Harlequin romances, Michael and I work really well together. If we can weather this together, we can weather anything. This singular fact gives me hope.

I have learned that, although patience is not my strong suit, I have a lot of it. I can do patience. I can build patience. I can have patience.

I'm not sure that I learned what I wanted to learn throughout this whole pandemic thing. I'm not sure that I accomplished the things that I wanted to accomplish. But I know that I am not exactly who I was 4 months ago. And I think that I have learned a lot about who I am, about what matters, and about what is truly important to me.