realizing things

I started this year with high hopes, looking forwards to launching a new business venture, moving into a new home with my girlfriend of two years, and most importantly of asking her to marry me and continue this adventure together. As we all know by now, life moves fast and the world is forever unpredictable. Just a day after my birthday, having just visited the future home to figure out the measurements for furniture we would need to order, my girlfriend finally found the strength to speak honestly and voice her fears and anxieties. Within the course of a day, we went from sharing a beautiful future together, to my realising the relationship I thought I'd had didn't really exist.

Beyond the realms of my domestic world, the pandemic was tearing through Europe and the rest of the world. Within the relative blink of an eye, my life and home has shrunk from one enjoyed with my best friend and my love, to one restricted to this home missing one of its two occupants. Friends and family support via Skype and WhatsApp. The pandemic reminds me that there's far greater pain and suffering in the world than anything I am feeling right now, and that has helped to step back from the moments when I get lost in the realisation that life is not a question of fairness, but a combination of joy and sadness. I try to be comfortable in the presence of both and the unpredictable path that life takes us.

relocating

I’ve been laid off and my boyfriend is still employed we live in The PNW. I always said when my job moves to another town about 40mins up north, that would be my fork in the road with that (rather toxic) job. So this March the time came where my job was moving which also coincided them them having significant financial woes and then the coronavirus shut downs arrived and so they offered me a severance pkg w guaranteed unemployment.

Tonight I mentioned to my boyfriend that I wanted to move to LA (where my family lives) while Ill have a steady unemployment income and he called me ignorant, shouted at how I didn’t comprehend the depression were headed into and also said it was my fault that I was let go and also excavated shit I was dealt w my previous employer From 2007-2011 and dumped it on me complaining about how he had to listen to me complain an hour a day About my job for fucking years. I told him that this kind of shitty attitude is why I don’t want to fuck him. I dont feel like he is the person for me to face the end if the world with. He is led by financial fear am led by family and passion. I have no family here. He has a sister here and hasn't even contacted her to see if she’s ok. He seems dead emotionally and my life fucking sucks.

eat it and weep

Every time my mother eats, she lets out a loud “mmmMMM” with every bite. It’s going to give me an aneurysm.

love is blind

Lockdown has got me really desperate so I downloaded tinder. I have now found myself with two boyfriends and a fiancé for when we leave quarantine. Don’t know how I’m gonna tell em

potty problems

Don't let your husband help potty train your boys. Last fall, while I was potty training my 3yo, my husband taught him to pee outside. I told him I wished he hadn't because I could foresee him peeing on his sister one day and finding it hilarious. Fast forward 6 months. Quarantine. Kids are out back playing because I can't with them anymore. 5yo comes in to tell me the 3yo pooped outside. I go out and sure enough, like a freaking dog, he has pooped in the yard. As if that wasn't bad enough, he tried to put it into his snack cup. Poop is everywhere. All husband can muster besides laughing is to tell me that I'll laugh about it one day. "But it is not this day." Aragorn

be a good neighbor

A few days into quarantine, I had no choice but to speak to the hot neighbor from across the street, as his dog was taking a shit in my yard when I was coming back from a walk with my mine. The dog is cute as hell and I had been eyeing it for MONTHS so of course I asked to meet the him. We started chatting and I can’t deny I definitely felt a spark. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I didn’t want to wait to “conveniently” run into him again so I was a total creep and found him and slid into the DMs. It worked and we’ve been hanging out. I was honestly just trying to get it in but that hasn’t even happened, and now t I ACTUALLY like the dude. However, I move 2 hours away in 2 weeks, I’m pretty sure I intimidate the fuck out of him, and now he “doesn’t know what he wants”. Rule #2 don’t fall for your neighbor 100 ft away during quarantine. Rule #1 is to not fall for your drug addict EDC uber driver, but thats a different story for a different time.

welp

My five year old son is convinced that my seasonal allergies must be the virus. Tonight he asked me how I was feeling and if I was going to die. I simply answered that I wasn’t feeling well but I probably wasn’t going to die. He proceeded to comfort me by telling me not to worry, not if but when I did die, his dad’s girlfriend would be his mom. Well, I guess I’ll just go crawl in a hole and wait for this stuffy nose to kill me now. Thanks kid.

final fantasy feud

Made it through a month of quarantine without getting angry at my fiancé. Then the new Final Fantasy came out. If I have to listen to little buttons being pushed for one more fucking second I will fucking scream.

chaotic good

Whenever I ask my fiancé if he’d “crack” a window, he flings it open all the way as if it’s an 80 degree day. And then I have to get up and close it. This never bothered me before but it’s messing with the couch potato lifestyle I’m trying to cultivate.

ping pong therapy

My husband and I WFH. We argue about everything from who is looking after the kids, what groceries to buy, his eating habits, who has the most important meetings and who has to walk the dogs. We set up a ping pong table in the garage and started playing competitively every day. It has done wonders for our marriage.

fresh nuggets

Look I haven’t had a proud moment today...I legitimately had the biggest melt down because my husband didn’t check the McDonald’s bag before coming home with my food and they forgot to put my sauce in the bag. All I wanted was nuggets and sauce, I refused to eat my food and gave it to the dog...but my husband is a good man who recognised I was hangry and stressed from work and instead of getting mad at me offered to go and get me fresh nuggets and make sure they put the sauce in the bag.

late nights with mr. nook

Day 18 of isolation. I have been sick...he hasn't..not even a sniffle while I have been struggling to breathe. Finally feeling better. Now he won't have sex with me incase I am still infected. Only so much more Animal Crossing I can play before I go crazy.

arrested development

I am quarantined with my parents (which is both good and terrible in its own right). I moved back into my childhood bedroom once my university graduation ceremony was cancelled and school was moved online. I am finding it difficult to separate my past memories and things I thought I had gotten over from my current self due to the space I am now stuck in. I was in love with this girl for awhile and I thought I had gotten over her, but the quarantine has forced me to sit in nothing but these memories since they were my last experience of intimacy before the pandemic. I'm finding it hard to both let go (again) and grow without distractions and new experiences.

like father like daughter

My 6 year old granddaughter and 40 year old son-in-law have a sibling type relationship. She blocks him off at the breakfast table with cereal boxes and will often say, "Go away Dada- stop bothering me!" In the shelter-at-home, her argument skills seem to be getting more refined. I just came downstairs to hear her say “I’m very offended by that.”

sassy grandpa

I have been isolating with my 95 year old grandpa for 3 weeks. We are both symptom free but he picks and chooses when to abide by social distancing. Today after making his lunch, taking away his dirty plates, putting on suncream for him etc he out of the blue says "don't talk to me you are polluting my air". He is 100% dementia free...just being a prick.

she/her/hers

At home with my wife and kids. No time to myself, which means no time to express my female identity. Suffering from gender dysphoria and increasingly feeling like I can't go on living as a man, but don't feel like it's fair to subject my family to a major upheaval. Too much time together is making me realise that my life is not what I want anymore. I want to live as a woman.

full house

I'm in a flatshare that has worked out pretty well for the last few years - partly because only three of us with very different working hours. All of us started dating someone new in the last year and all of those partners are here, full time.

baby boom

I secretly love working from home. Everyone’s complaining but I’m working from home happier than ever. I don’t have to commute and I get to have lunch with my husband everyday. I’m scared when we go back to the office I’ll want to quit my job - maybe I’ll start trying for a baby….

april fool’s

Every so often, my Google Nest Mini speaker would pause in the middle of a podcast. I thought it was some connectivity issue until my husband finally fessed up at dinner that he's been doing it because the option comes up on his phone. I never noticed it only paused when he was home a few rooms away. It made him laugh so much I wasn't even really mad. He had me fooled for three months.

law and order: TP

My boyfriend of 6 years has always complained about how much toilet paper I use, but it’s gotten even worse since the virus. I’m so sick of his comments that I’ve started bringing my own secret roll into the bathroom each time I go so I don’t use our common one. He’s now so impressed with my “newfound frugality” and how long I can make a roll last. I hope I don’t get get caught sneaking in the second roll, because I’m enjoying the TP peace for now.