Tag: look back

Living in a Post-Covid World

While Covid isn’t technically over with yet, it has slowed down enough for the world to return to somewhat normal. We don’t need masks anymore. We don’t have restrictions on where we can go or what we can do. Life is back to how it was…or is it? With cases on the rise again, we might wind up doing this whole thing all over again.

Looking back on the last two years, all I can think about is how weird it really was. We all essentially lost two years of our lives. It’s like two years just didn’t exist. We couldn’t go anywhere. We couldn’t do anything. Nothing was open. We were confined to our homes.

While Covid did mess a lot up, (like my trip to Germany that’s been put on hold for over two years) it also showed us that there is still good in the worst of times. Because I was required to sit at home when Covid started back in 2020, I met some really awesome people through Twitch and Discord and through playing games like Fortnite and Apex.

But this blog post isn’t about a time during Covid. This is about after it. Basically, my life is back to normal. I’m working full-time. I can go and do whatever I want when I want. I can try to regain some of what was lost over the last two years. I’ve even gone to a few concerts recently.

But going back to normal also comes with a price. I don’t have as much time to play video games. I don’t have as much time to just hang around on Twitch or Discord. And sadly, I don’t really talk to most of those friends I’ve made during the pandemic. Life just got too busy it seems. I do hear from a few every now and then, but we don’t talk like we used to.

The two years we weren’t able to do anything were truly some of the weirdest moments of my life. The world came to a halt and it’s something I never thought I’d see happen. It’ll be interesting to think about Covid times again years from now. How we reacted. What we did. What it was like. It was just such a strange time, and one I won’t forget.

Snapping Back to Reality

At the beginning of January, I went to Colorado for a week with two of my friends and one of my brothers. It was an amazing week. I’ve gone there every year for the past five years except 2021 because of Covid. I didn’t know what Colorado looked like at the time, and I didn’t want to risk getting sick. To make up for it, we went to Wisconsin instead.

The trip to Colorado was broken up into two parts. The first half of the week we spend on the mountain at Winter Park. While I can’t compare it to other ski resorts in Colorado because I haven’t been to any, I can say that I really do enjoy going there. It’s not super crowded and we’ve been there enough to know our way around pretty well. It feels familiar.

We skied for 3 days, which is the usual, and then we headed down to Colorado Springs, a place none of us have been to before. While it wasn’t all that exciting, we did go to the Garden of the Gods. It is beautiful there. What made it better was the fact that it was sunny out as well. Colorado truly holds some of the most amazing views in all of the United States.

I can go into more detail on the trip, but that would take way too long to do. Instead, watch this video if you’re interested: Colorado 2022. I basically made a whole video about the trip including some footage from on the mountain while skiing. There’s a part in it where I fall into a big pile of snow. It’s great!

What I really want to say is that Colorado this year was different. It was harder to come home. Covid had us locked up for so long, we forgot what it was like to be free; to do what we want. We went to Colorado and started 2022 off the best way possible.

I’ve been home over a month and I keep thinking about that trip. The fun we had. Living life without worry. Waking up knowing the next day would be filled with fun and excitement. Now, every day is the same. I wake up, do some stuff, go to work, then go to sleep, and do it again the next day. On my days off, I’ll play some video games or do some other random tasks. But I’m not truly free. I’m free to do what I want in a very confined space.

It’s not that I don’t like playing games or my job. I love the life I have, but to be able to just travel, see new places, do fun things all day every day, it’s not a luxury I have. Humans weren’t put on this planet to work all the time. We aren’t here to be miserable. We should be allowed to go out and have fun too. We should be able to enjoy the things this planet has to offer before it’s too late.

In September I’m supposed to go to Germany for a week. That trip will be absolutely amazing, but I already know it’ll be so hard to come home. I’ve never left the United States. The farthest I ever traveled was to Hawaii almost 20 years ago.

Germany will be a completely different experience that I can’t wait for. The things I experience there will most likely change how I view things. And while I’m excited to go, I’m afraid it’ll change my mentally. Not necessarily for the worst, but change it in a way that’ll make me want more. I’ll want to see more. I’ll want to travel more. I won’t be happy just sitting at home and and going to work.

In the meantime, I can only remember the fun times and enjoy the present. We all need a break from reality every once in awhile. My next break won’t be until April at the earliest, maybe July. It seems far away, but it really isn’t. Life is meant to be enjoyed for the short amount of time we’re here. We should all take advantage of that when we get the chance to.

I Am Who I Am

I’ve been reflecting lately. On 2021. On my life. On the things I’ve done and haven’t done. Not in a bad way. More like a reflection of my past to better understand the present and the future.

It’s weird. Because from the time I turned 18 until I was in my late 20s, I sort of struggled with who I was. I didn’t know what career I wanted. I didn’t fully know who I was as a person. I didn’t know if I had any skills that were worth anything. I wasn’t necessarily a mess, it was just a decade of discovery for me.

The weird thing is, once I hit 30, all of that kind of changed. Well, most of it. Ok, only some of it. I discovered who I was in my late 20s. The person I am, my values and traits, that was all locked in. But something kind of funny happened. Something I didn’t expect. I stopped caring.

What do I mean by that? It’s simple. I stopped giving a shit about what other people thought of me. Last year I read a book called The Subtle Art of not Giving a F*ck. It was a great read and I recommend it to everyone. After reading that book, I was left speechless. I realized that I put way too much effort into things I couldn’t control. About a year later, I finally started taking the advice from the book.

We can’t control everything. We can’t control how people view us. We can’t control what they think of us. We can’t control what they say about us either. But we can control how we react to things. And once I hit 30, I literally decided that people’s opinions of me didn’t matter anymore. If they talk trash about me, that doesn’t matter either. I know who I am and I’m not changing for anyone. I know I can’t control what people say about me, but I can control how I react. And how will I react? I’ll act like I don’t don’t care anymore because I don’t.

2020: The End and The Beginning

2020 was some kind of year. It had its ups and downs. It seemed like for every positive thing there were about 10 negative things. Not to mention that March to about August seemed to last about 20 years while August to December went by in the blink of an eye. But was 2020 all that bad? From my own personal experience, it really wasn’t. Sure some things got thrown off track because of Covid, but overall I did have a decent year.

My year started off amazing. I was in Colorado for our annual skiing trip. We went to Winter Park and spent a week skiing before returning home. It’s a trip I look forward to every year. Sadly we won’t be going this time around. Covid is to blame. But life will go on. We will return when it is safe to do so. In the meantime, we will jusy have to go skiing closer to home.

April took a dive downward. I wound up with Covid with the rest of my family. We all recovered from it, but it was definitely an experience I won’t forget. It was not fun. For me, it lasted for about 10 days. While I was fine enough to go outside and walk around the house, I didn’t leave the property. I was not going to put others at risk and it was a long time after I had it that I decided it was safe for me to even go to the store again.

2020 has opened the door to many new friendships as well. I’ve met a lot of awesome people through Discord and Twitch and many of them live a world away. If it wasn’t for Covid, there’s a good chance I never would of met any of these people. I was only able to meet them because I was stuck at home for 2 months and spent a good chunk of my time online.

August brought another sad moment. I had plans to go to Sweden in August but we cancelled that trip because of Covid. It was going to be my first international trip. It was going to be such an awesome experience and I was so excited. But safety comes first. And while we didn’t go, we plan to make up for it with a trip to Germany in September of 2021.

As the year came to a close I couldn’t help but smile at all the things I was still able to accomplish even with the world in a state of uncertainty. I continued to take classes and I spent 2020 learning German. I’m not completely fluent in it but Ich spreche ein bisschen Deutsch.

2020 was also the year where I was able to bring myself out of the massive debt hole I was in. I’m not 100% debt free, but I’m in a much better spot than I was 12 months ago and that alone calls for celebration. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to do it but I did. And I’m so happy I did. It feels like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders and I can’t wait to start 2021 in a much better place financially.

Along with all the chaos I also wrote a new LEGO animated film as well as created a new comic series. I’ve spent a decent amount of time doing creative things like that as well as video editing. I needed to keep busy and I definitely did with those projects.

I’m excited for 2021. The world might not be back to normal, but there’s plenty of things I want to accomplish. I want to film the short film I wrote and my new LEGO animation. I want to read at least one book a month. I want to do more video editing. There’s plenty I can do this year. All I have to do it set my mind to it.