Mattox Live

As I type this, I’m sitting at my kitchen table. There’s stuff all over the table that just needs to be put away. I’m here instead of my desk, because it is in the same sad shape. Worse, actually. I’ve just been too busy to take care of my house.

Aggie Muster was a couple days ago, and we actually gathered in person. It was all outdoors, and it ended up being a small gathering of only about 25 people. But oh what good it did my heart. Many of these people I hadn’t see in two years, and many others had been waiting for an opportunity to finally come out and meet fellow alumni. The pandemic had robbed us all of a lot of much needed camaraderie.

Pandemic fatigue is a thing. And I most definitely have it at this point. A lot of us do, which I feel like is evidenced by a lot of the negativity I’ve seen recently. I feel like it amplified the unrest that surrounded the election. It amplified all of our emotions… especially any of the negative ones.

We’ve all dealt with this pandemic in our own ways. I know a lot of people who have coped with statistics and numbers. I know people who have coped with emotions. I know people who have coped using science. I know people who have coped using faith. I know people who have coped by just hiding from the world.

I supposed you could say I’m a combination of all of those ways of coping. And it is exhausting.

I’ve lost people personally to COVID. I’ve seen a lot of people pull through it fine, too. It’s been an interesting year. And emotional one.

I’m only days away from being fully vaccinated, two weeks out from my second Moderna shot. I’m going to get to see my family soon, and hopefully we can travel to see my husband’s family as well. These are the prizes I have my eyes set on hard. I’m trying hard to block out everything that could distract me from that. Everything that could hold me back from it. Focus. We’ve come so far already.

Over the last few months, my life has been work, get groceries and do laundry on my days off, then go back to work. I’ll clean my house some day, I think at least once a week. I miss eating out, live music, and meeting up with friends.

I’ve started working with Stella & Dot, selling jewelry, bags and skincare. And I love it. I just wish I had more time to do it, and a bigger pool of people to reach. In a time when everyone seems to be getting into a side hustle, it is hard to be heard among the Pampered Chefs and Scentsy crowds. (Both of which I adore, so don’t take that as a dig.) But its a challenge I am willing to face.

Recently, going through my Timehop (I’m on day 1400 streak of checking it) I’ve started noticing how often I shared whatever jewelry I’d recently picked up or chose to wear that day. It wasn’t as much as it is now, of course, but I suppose I’ve always had something of a love for jewelry and sharing it with others.

My house is so quiet right now. All I hear is the pump in the cat’s water dish (yes, the cats’ water has a pump that keeps it moving at all times) and the occasional car passing the house. My husband and cats are still asleep, so its just me, the laptop and a cup of coffee that’s grown cold. It’s a cloudy, dreary day. We just had a big cold snap that threatened to take out all my pretty flowers I recently planted. I suppose this is a somewhat melancholy scene, but its also a peaceful one.

With Muster on Wednesday and not having to cover a shift on Saturday, I have my first four-day weekend in a long, long time. I’m savoring the quiet. I’m savoring the slower pace of this day. I’m allowing myself to process this pandemic fatigue I am feeling, and I’m giving myself grace for having it.

I think I’ll make another cup of coffee, and feel all the feels.