July Thoughts

"Peace in the Green Mountains of Vermont"

Hello my good friends and readers!

I have been lax in writing and just haven't been inspired as of late. In a mood and just blocked. I would get triggered by a topic and then get bored by it. I know I needed to get something out so I decided to give a few ramblings and musings of this last month. It's been kind of sucky. 

Now listen, I know I am usually pretty happy go lucky. I like to think my glass is half full. I look for the positive in life and try and stay upbeat. I don't know what hit me but it sure clobbered me this month. My mood just started spiraling downwards. I think honestly, everything happening with COVID-19 just started getting to me. This sense of foreboding hopelessness. 

And sometimes, we like to wallow in our self pity and moodiness. I certainly did. I just wanna recognize it though, confront it. Even the most positive of people have their down times. I am included in this. The one day I put up something about it on Facebook, people did reach out. I appreciated that. Others tried to snap me out of it. I get what they were trying to do and also appreciate their approach. 

You sometimes, need to get out of these "moods" yourself. Even the best meaning attempts will not help. It's a personal journey whether it lasts a day, a week, several, or months.

I did come to realize who supports me on my blog and who doesn't. Social media is such a funny illusion. For a large group of us, the people on there are acquaintances or friends of friends. Someone you casually come across, have a mutual friend, and add them because the are interesting, hot, or both! I added alot of people in the past couple years in hopes of increasing my blog readership. It didn't happen. I was disappointed but glad I learnt that lesson. As I stated, I know who reads my blog. 

So I took a good look at my "friends list" and started dropping people. Some had duplicate accounts. There were actually quite a few of you. 😁 I understand why, all good. Some had passed on, sadly to say. Others were people which I don't even know how I knew or met. But if they hadn't commented on my life, my stuff or read my blog, they were dropped. 

I kept my high school, college, and Philly friends. Others, I asked myself, what did  this person really bring to my life? Chances are if they brought nothing, they were dropped. Life is too short to have people on my pages which give me stress. 

I kinda got amazed in how swept up I got in the numbers of it all. And it was just an illusion. Maybe you like those 'likes'. Sure it's a confidence booster, albeit temporary. I did the same with Instagram and Twitter, dropping several hundred accounts. I blocked all those unknown followers as well for the same reasons. If I had no connection with the follower or they brought nothing to my life, they were dropped. Otherwise, the connection was suspect and made me apprehensive.

I breathed a sigh of relief and began to shed the overwhelming nature of social media. I must keep remembering that I write for myself, not others. The numbers are nice and sure I'd love to be published but I am note going to go about it this way. 

So that started making me feel better. I also had a bad week at work. but that's to be expected. A great conversation with my Pop which helped me get over that. 

Lastly, this pandemic! How crazy right? I don't feel like it's going away anytime soon. I don't care what side politically you are on, it's just so damn depressing. But now with numbers rising, it's not the time to lower our guards. Just my opinion. I'm just tired of dealing with it all and hope we get back to our normal very soon. 

I sometimes feel hopeless with it. There is no end in sight and only hypotheticals on when it will end. Little things we used to do are now taken for granted such as running out to see a friend over a beer or cup of coffee. It seems as if we are all waiting for the other shoe to drop and have everything closed up again. I hate this dread and uncertainty. 

I am still looking forward to a better August. I can't believe it's August already. Still feels like April. I am still blessed and must remember this. I have good friends, good job, wonderful home, great pets, and the Big Ragu! I know I dropped off from my home projects list and am going to try and get motivation to get back into it. Think positive Marc, you know you will. 😉

Here's to surviving another month during the COVID-19 pandemic!