It’s been a doozy of a summer. I’ve been living that pandemic summer for three summers now!
- 2020: COVID was still new.
- 2021: I had a newborn premie.
- 2022: I became immunocompromised. Ugh. I won’t go into too much detail but I was diagnosed with a blood disorder in May called ITP where your platelets go way down to dangerous levels. Two hospital stays, three rounds of steroids and many IV treatments later we are still figuring things out. The good news is I feel fine and it’s treatable, but the bad news is the treatment I am on wipes out your immunity so I’ve had to lay low and cancel on a lot of things.
I am not sharing this for sympathy but rather a reminder that the pandemic is still happening and also a reminder to go to your routine doctor appointments and get tests and bloodwork when they are ordered. I would have never known I had this if not for routine bloodwork.
Now that we have that out of the way, the last two+ years have been so weird. If you’ve read this blog for any period of time, you know that I am a type A go-getter. But the last several months I’ve shifted a bit. I am still involved in professional organizations but things like updating this blog, working out at 5:30 a.m., sending out my newsletter and networking have fallen by the wayside. I remember in 2020 people said being stuck at home gave them so much more time to do things like learning a new language. I never understood that.
All this to say, if you’re feeling stuck, or not motivated, embrace it. I miss my pre-pandemic self and world so much, but I can’t even imagine having that schedule now. Yes, I have a one-year-old who is into EVERYTHING right now so that doesn’t help, but a child or not, I look back on a typical work day for myself and I cannot imagine doing it all now. I think the pandemic plus the state of the world makes it OK for us to not be as motivated, and things out of our control like health issues. Plus, no one has been waiting with bated breath for me to drop a new blog post or attend an event, so I think I’m OK. 🤣 As long as my work is done, my child is healthy and happy and we have groceries and toilet paper, then that’s the new way of thriving.
And one final point. Check out of social media every now and then. I love to delete the apps off my phone some weekends to stay away since it’s always my go-to when I am sitting to mindlessly scroll. I have to be on it for work but I don’t have to be on it all the time. And for those Instagram storying their entire honeymoon: please don’t. I love seeing beautiful trip posts, but like, enjoy your trip. I know content is everything, but take photos and videos and share later like the good old days. Aren’t photo dumps still cool? (Also, let’s change that name.)
The good news: we’re entering a new season. Fall and holidays will of course be as fast as the first half of the year, but my fall goals include getting my platelets under control, eating better and doing fun fall things with my family. I also hope to be more consistent with my blog and newsletter, but I am not making any promises because sometimes, a nap is better.
