The Loneliest Year — MindfullyMendedMama

Hey Babes,

I don’t know if it is just me but I have been feeling heavy the past week. Something about knowing that it has been a year since we were first in lockdown from COVID just hits ya hard, ya know. I want to start off by saying that I know many of us have vastly different views on this virus and the severity of it. That alone has caused so much strife. This post is my personal experience with the virus and my personal experience with the past year. Please do not leave any negative or argumentative comments. I have done the research, I know confidently where I stand. I appreciate your views and respect your experience. This is just mine. We have all been through enough. These are just my thoughts and the things I have learned in isolation.

A lot can happen in a year.

look how cute I am… completely unaware of what is to come… Happy 30th hahahaha

My 30th birthday last year was AMAZING. My husband, family and friends made me feel so special. What I didn’t know is that it was going to be the last normal weekend in 2020. I know that Covid was a thing because one of my best friends was in Prague at the time. She had already been quarantining and warning me about what might happen in the U.S. Nothing could have prepared me for the next year.

I said goodbye to my out of town friends and family who had traveled to celebrate me and went about my next day. Peter came home from work and said, “So I’ll be working from home for the next couple weeks…” Ok, what? Then the order came… ‘Two weeks to flatten the curve’. It was all a lot.

We settled in and tried to create a “new normal”. Peter set up his office in the guest room and we tried to make the best out of a bad situation. It just kept getting heavier and heavier. We then started to hear talk of a possible move with Peters job. I’m like, “move in the middle of a pandemic? That’s a joke right?” Wrong. For several months we were back and forth not knowing where we were going to end up or if we were going to stay in Cincy. During that time too I was waiting to see if one of my best friends was going to get stuck in Europe before they shut down all travel. She made it home but because of quarantine we couldn’t even hug each other. We said hello after an entire year through a window. After two weeks we finally and safety reunited but it was moments like that you never forget. Then of course as all of you remember this is also when the George Floyd tragedy happened. I had to fight for the injustice. Read about those thoughts and experiences here.

It just felt like one thing after another. We got the call that Peter’s next role would be in Arkansas, so the next two months would be selling our house and packing up our life and moving.

During that entire process we received a call that my Grandpa wasn’t doing well. Then within a month we received that hard news that He had passed. What now? Even as I type this I can feel the heartache. I miss him so much. There have been so many time I have forgotten and picked up the phone to call him. Because of the pandemic the funeral could only be my family, especially since we are a large family. Peter stayed with the girls while I went with my family up to New York to say goodbye to my amazing Pop. Let me start by saying this. If you lost someone this year I am so sorry. Having a funeral in the middle of a pandemic is incredibly hard. I am so grateful for the family that I come from. The Hollowood’s are strong and when tragedy happens we come together and fight together. As hard as it was to say goodbye to Pop, there was a tangible peace coming together with my fam. I am incredibly grateful to be a Hollowood.

I know this may feel like a journal entry, and maybe it reads like it, but there is a point so if you have held on this long thank you. We drove back to Cincy after the funeral and when we arrived home my grandmother wasn’t well. We ended up putting her in the hospital and I had to say goodbye to her there before I moved away. That was the hardest goodbye I have ever had to do because I had no idea if that was the last time I was going to see her. Especially after just trying to grieve my Pop. It was all too much. Gram is doing a little better and after getting her out of the horrible rehab center she was sent to, Mom got her home and settled. She is recovering but needs around the clock care. She is a pillar.

We packed up my amazing house and boarded a plane a flew all the way to AR. Saying goodbye to our first home was way harder than I thought. There were just so many firsts there. I painted every room in that house, I redid so many things. I still feel like I left a piece of my heart there.

The first couple months in our new home were fuzzy to me. Trying to cope with 2020 while in a completely new place while still in the middle of a pandemic was overwhelming. I will say when you reach a point of that kind of emotion, it is good to finally be able to take stock of your emotional and mental health. Mine… was not good.

I found a therapist in the area and talked through some of the issues I had been having. I talked through not being able to focus and feeling incredibly overwhelmed and just saying my anxiety was at an all time high. After 30 years on this earth, I was finally diagnosed with ADHD. The missing puzzle piece to the brain I had so often misunderstood. You can read more about that here.

It took me almost 8-9 months of insanity before I felt like I was capable enough to ask for help. Like the idea of therapy was so foreign to me. I had always encouraged other people to go but never felt like it was needed for me. My life wasn’t “that bad” or I was “strong enough” to handle it. There is something amazing about the moment you realize that you need help. The humanity and humility that comes with it is weirdly empowering if that makes sense. I know that I am stubborn and I often do everything by myself. Just because someone carries something well doesn’t mean that it is not heavy. Admitting that you need help is the most life giving thing you can do for yourself. We were not created for isolation or to carry thing alone. “It is not good that man should be alone.” Gen 2:18. We were not created to do life alone, we need community, we need family and we need help. I think asking for help and prioritizing your mental health shows incredible strength. After all, what good does it do the people around you if you are suffering in silence. Are you not punishing your family by suffering alone and not telling anyone why you are hurting. No matter how much we try to “keep it all together” it eventually leaks out in some way. The damn can only hold so much water before little streams start to leak out. What are you leaking onto your family and friends? Maybe it’s anger, maybe you get mad at your life and you treat your family with anger. Maybe it’s fear and you live in constant fear of everything. Maybe you withdrawal? Whatever it is, maybe it is time you ask for help. I am telling you, it is to this day the best thing I did. Start putting your mental health first. You cannot take care of people on empty because you start to resent them and then you are treating them terribly instead of taking care of them. It’s a vicious cycle. Take care of yourself first.

steps off platform

This was the loneliest year for me. It was a year of grieving, learning how to stand up for myself, learning about my brain and learning what I truly believe. I am not going to lie, it has been super hard to have different views than people close to me. It has been hard to be so passionate about keeping my family safe from this virus and seeing friend and family have vastly different views. It has been immensely hard to keep my family and extended family safe by staying in quarantine while I see others not doing the same. I know that people have different views and that’s ok, I’m simply acknowledging how hard is has been to care so much when it feel like you are caring alone. Thankfully most of the people closest to me share my passion, especially since we have seen first hand the damage this virus has done. We have also lost family to this virus and have family who were very vulnerable. That is why I wear a mask. That is why my family is getting vaccinated and why my husband and I will too.

I heard someone say once that taking precautions for COVID is like living in fear. As someone who struggles with anxiety I disagree. I see the threat and I am doing what I think is best for my family. When my mom told me she set an appointment to be vaccinated I cried. There is a light at the end of this very dark tunnel. It was the loneliest year… but I learned in the loneliness how to fight for myself and for my family. I learned how to prioritize my mental health and myself. I learned how important it is to take care of yourself first before you take care of others. It is certainly not selfish, you are not doing the people around you any good by being a martyr. Get help, talk to someone and put yourself first.

So on this weird anniversary of being quarantined I want to stand tall. I have gone through the fire and I will continue to refine myself. If not for me.. then for the people who depend on me. Please if you take anything away from this… Please find a therapist. We all could use counseling after this past year. There is no issue too small. We have all been through more than we realize. Talk through your grief and your struggles before you leak on your family. Whether you realize it or not… you are leaking.

Love you all

XOXO,

KB