2021 has officially joined 2020 for continuing to suck. January plods on and on, but eventually, it too must pass. Plans for 2021? Anyone? The word of the month, (remind me to create an index of pandemic words), has become “variant”. As in, the novel coronavirus (remember when we called it that?) has been, gasp, … More The Never-ending January 2021
No matter how locked up we are, no matter how screen-confined we’ve become, no matter that we have nowhere to dress for, a motto for my consumer generation could be: “Have internet, and credit card, will shop.” I’m not a big clothes horse or shopper anymore. I was young enough once, and poor enough once, … More Pandemic Clothes Shopping
Many army brats of my generation can remember the base curfews growing up in within barbed-wire-fenced camp borders in our PMQs (Married Quarters – I’m not going down that rabbit hole again about what the ‘P’ stands for. Personal? Private? Permanent? Doesn’t matter anyway – we just called our houses ‘PMQs’.) Curfews for the younger … More Curfew! (Part of never-ending January 2021)
It’s only the 8th day of January, and already it feels like it will never end. Running slo-mo through molasses. A nightmare where I’m trying to wake up. Covid numbers, hospital overflows. Stricter shutdowns, rules, higher fines. My curling ice bookings are cancelled, again. Swim times no longer permitted. Of course, you say. Those 1 … More Pandemic January
I must write this story before my mood is poisoned by any bitterness of reality. I’m 14, I live on the military base of Yorkton, Saskatchewan, a tiny radar station 10 kilometers from the city of Yorkton proper. In grade 9 now, I bus that 10 kilometers into town to the civilian junior high school, … More December 2020. Finally.
If you’re like me, a healthy 60-something in retirement, then you understand when I say, this pandemic has sure put a stop to the plans I had. To be fair, I’m sure it’s changed the plans of well, everybody in the whole wide world, but I can only speak for myself here. And plans for … More Spend More in Retirement (Part 2. Pandemic)
I usually hate November, the dreariest month of the year: the declining weather; the increasing darkness, exacerbated by the time change, which I used to love getting the extra hour sleep of when I was working. But now, on my own natural schedule, like a family dog curious why its dinner is delayed, I find … More November 2020. Ugh.
No matter how hard I want to surf this new wave of the pandemic, I feel it hasn’t bottomed out yet. October was not a good month for many reasons, but especially within my circle, bubble – whatever the limited environment I now live within – is called. A death in the family really puts … More Oct 2020. Peaks and Troughs. A Trough.
“I get knocked down, I get back up again, You’re never gonna keep me down…”, Chumbawumba… We’ve all lost people we love (or will, especially at our age 😉). I won’t mention the pandemic this time, who needs to? Each daily statistic represents someone’s personal grief. People are people, we live, we love, we die. … More The Gift of Grief
September always feels like the start of a new year to me. As does my birthday, in May: It’s the feel of a new season, new activities, fresh beginnings. It has never felt more like a new life than this closing of September of 2020 – the year we shall always reference by “before Covid, … More September 2020. Reset.
Stevie Szabad, Author 