2020 was a trying year, to put it mildly.

Everyone’s life was, and still is, disrupted. Some more than others. I already worked from home, and I don’t have kids in school, so much of my day-to-day routine wasn’t turned upside down.

Of course I was affected by the shortages of paper goods, hand sanitizer, disinfecting wipes, meat for a while, and other things. Wiping down everything that came from the store was a pain. I was glad when that was deemed unnecessary. And I have more than once nearly entered a store without a mask on.  

But, unbeknownst to me, what was seriously affected in my life was my ability to write.

Not what I expected then or now

After my husband died suddenly a few years ago, I was unable to read for many months. Not that I couldn’t read, but I couldn’t concentrate long enough to follow a story longer than a short newspaper article. This was frightening for me since words are my life. I had no idea an inability to concentrate could be caused by grief. It didn’t happen when my parents or my grandmother died, so I was surprised. Thankfully, my ability to concentrate began improving. It took a long time for my full reading ability to return, but it did.

Oddly, during those initial months of deep grieve when my husband died I didn’t lose my ability to write; so I was puzzled by my struggle to write for most of 2020. I squeaked out some blog posts, but they have been few and far between. I often didn’t have it in me to write much of anything, and frankly it was concerning.

The cause comes to light and a solution found

A few weeks ago, I finally connected my inability to write with the stress of 2020. I didn’t think the events of the year had affected me that much when I compared it to the upheaval it caused in others’ lives, but I was wrong.  So, what to do?

At that point, I knew I needed to write. I knew that it was time to seriously journal and get some of the emotions about all this out of me. I started doing that last week. My stress level is improving. And I am once again wanting to write blog posts and stories and other things.

The mind is an amazing thing, that writing the emotions out of me was the antidote for my inability to write.

So, what about 2021 you ask?

First and foremost, thank you for continuing to read my blog posts and for commenting sometimes, too. I appreciate that you do that.

I don’t guarantee that I will write a blog post every week in 2021, but I will surely try.

In the works for 2021 is volume 2 of the Easy Family History Journal series. The tentative title for volume 2 is The Branching Out Years: College, Career, Military, and More. You can read about the series and volume 1 here.

Also, I have scheduled a Marking Your Milestones class for the summer. We will meet via Zoom. You can read about those classes here.

If there’s something you’d like me write about or you have a question, please let me know. You can contact me here.

With all sincerity,

Nancy

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