Today is May 13th, 2020.

God, 2019 feels like a millennia ago.

So… where to begin? Ah yes, with my last post. Ha. Ha.

March 7th, 2020. I said hopefully it wouldn’t be a few months without another post. I’m here to laugh at that guy. Poor bastard had no idea what was coming. That guy was kicking goals, looking ahead to holidays, and generally feeling pretty good.

That guy? He’s gone now.

I feel like some sort of post-apocalyptic version of that guy. The shit I’ve seen. The shit I’ve read. I’ve facepalmed more times per day than there have been days since my last post.

YEESH.

Not only that, but goddamn has my brain been on a yoyo. Now, I’m not someone who has anxiety, or depression, or mental health issues. Not normally. But the past two months have been some of the most trying times for just how well my will power can hold up.

Full disclosure, I already needed time off and this didn’t help.

So after dealing with a difficult staff situation that finally came to a conclusion, I was already maxed out. I needed time just to refocus and reenergize. I spoke to my boss about it and we agreed upon a time for me to take a week off so he set about rostering for it and I put it in my calendar. Unfortunately, due to my brain being fried, I forgot to put it in the actual program where leave gets booked and as the time got closer, I realized my roster still said I was working. When I brought this to my boss’s attention, he shrugged and said it was too late now. I argued my point but lacked the energy to take it to war. So I resigned myself to the fact that my plan to finish writing my second novel and shop my first one to agents would have to wait.

Then, the media began talking about COVID-19, some kind of Coronavirus. It had begun to take over countries, putting them into lockdown and killing thousands. I read the news. Watched world leaders. As it grew ever closer, I wondered what would happen if our business went into lockdown. Businesses around my own shut their doors and their windows went dark. One by one they fell. Meanwhile, our own shop took new precautions almost hourly.

The government sent us into lockdown as a state, but the rules were grey at best. Social distance if you have to go out, but don’t go out. Shops are still open, but only for essentials. Puzzles, games, movies? Essential! Clothes? Nah, not essential enough.

At first, I resented my company and their choice to stay open. How dare they put my life at risk for their dollars? How dare they profit from this madness? Then, as those other stores stopped paying their staff and those staff ended up in the welfare queues, suddenly… it felt good to be at work. I stopped thinking about my holiday and began focusing on staying positive. Who knew how long this would last? Who knew when we may possibly shut?

The call to close? It never came. We traded straight through the quarantine and man, did we ever cop abuse from some of our lovely customers. People complained we had stopped taking cash like it was our choice at the front counter to do so. People complained their repairs were taking too long like our agents weren’t quarantined and their parts weren’t coming from overseas. Don’t get me wrong, many people did the right things but it’s not them that I remember. No, I remember the guy wearing underwear on his head. Yes, you read that right. Blue boxer shorts to be exact. (I took a photo from the security footage, but I won’t post it here. It does exist, I needed proof.)

On top of this, worrying about my family through this period has been hard as they’re all in Canada and I reside in Australia. Not only did COVID show its ugly face in Nova Scotia, but then the province had the worst mass shooting Canada has ever seen so… if I wasn’t stressed already, nothing like hearing the news that there’s a deranged gunman on the loose, shooting randoms. Always a nice touch.

*GASP*

Okay, so that brings us to now where restrictions are being lifted and that gunman got taken out and gun control is getting even tighter in Canada. I have done more cleaning than writing thus far, but I did read all of Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Virtue and Vengeance (and recommend her series wholeheartedly) and I’m working on catching up on my writing group’s work (sorry folks!). I also watched all of One Punch Man, played a heap of Animal Crossing and Pokemon Sword.

So… writing… *Ahem*

As I ease myself back into writing, it’s hard to write all this out. Two months. That was all it took for borders to lockdown, travel to shut up shop, and cruises to pretty much go out of business. The way the world operated changed in a matter of weeks and my world became a haze of frustration, misery, and depression. I started to feel unwell when thinking about going to work and genuinely struggled to keep positive. After being at work all day in a blur of anxiety wondering if the customer I’m dealing with is a carrier for COVID, I’d come home and just sleep. Every day wore me down more and more. I’d try and do little things, play a game or read, but nope, straight up sleep.

Now, I have a week and a half left of holidays and I use this blog as my gateway back into writing. I will still try and find myself an agent, despite the struggles of the industry. I’ll finish up book two’s first draft and finish plotting out book three. I’m going to try and finish a course or two in writing. Then, hopefully, I will return to work a refreshed and happy TJ and back to a bit of productivity toward becoming an author.

Either way, thanks for checking in on the blog and I’ll try and keep this a bit more up to date. Although at this point, who the hell knows what the next two months hold in store for us?!