Afterthoughts

Most of us start out the new year expecting a fresh beginning. This is the time to make a list of your new year’s resolutions and conquer them! Or in most peoples’ case just make a list. This year started out pretty decent for me actually. I was working full-time and going to school full-time as well. I was looking forward to graduating with my Bachelor’s degree in May. Thank goodness because I was pulling my hair out with all the stress from school. Literally, you could see clumps of my hair all over the house, but that could also have been from my lack of cleaning lately. Moving onto March, I started hearing more about COVID-19. They had begun to shut down certain businesses in Minnesota where I was living. There was talk around my work place saying that we could possibly get shut down because we weren’t considered an essential business. Later on, we got notice that we were essential. Who knew a book binding company was essential? Anyways, my company ended up laying off myself and several other employees for about a month. After the month, everyone got called back but me. I forgot to mention, my husband also worked at the same company. When everyone got called back and I didn’t, my husband started asking questions as to why I was still stuck sitting at home since I was the accounting administrator. My boss finally replied in a roundabout way saying they weren’t calling me back. That moment started my job search, which still continues to this day unfortunately.

In May, I finally graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration with an emphasis in Marketing at the age of 32. Trust me, there were a lot of tears to get that degree. I told my husband if I ever think about going back to school, please tell me no and remind me how terrible it was! At the end of May, something happened that changed history, the black community, and my husband’s and my life. George Floyd was killed by a cop in Minneapolis where we lived. I watched the video right after it happened, but I had no idea that his death would end up affecting the world. I actually had a house in North Minneapolis. My husband and I had just bought it in 2018. We knew that it wasn’t the best neighborhood, but our block was decent and we were hoping the area would improve. After what happened, I’ll call it the “incident”, they had riots right next to our house for three nights straight. We didn’t sleep at all for fear they would burn our house down or break in. They burnt down some businesses a block away, hundreds of people were marching through our alley, people were riding 4-wheelers in front of our house holding Molotov cocktails, people were breaking into apartment complexes, and gas stations were being broke into and burnt down a few blocks from our house. It was a stressful time. After the riots died down, the violence and crime rate shot up in our neighborhood. My husband was on the roof of our house one day fixing a gutter and he was watching a drug deal happen near the intersection by our house. Well, obviously something went bad because all of a sudden there was shooting and someone was run over. In the process, our house was hit with a stray bullet. Another time, I was home alone job hunting and heard a bunch of gunfire in the same intersection. A couple days later, my husband came home and happened to notice that his truck had been shot. The bullet ricocheted off the hood, went through the windshield and got stuck up in the headliner. My husband was steaming. This was the moment we decided to sell our house. About two days before our house went up for sale, someone was murdered on our block in the middle of the afternoon. We were terrified that this would affect our house being sold. About a week before we moved out of our house, I got a package in the mail. It was my diploma cover, but I got three of them by mistake. I opened up the secured cardboard package to empty out my three diploma covers and out rolled three empty bullet casings. I was shocked and confused. My husband called the cops. Were we being targeted? Was someone telling us to be quiet about something? We called the cops at five in the afternoon, they didn’t arrive until 11 that night because they were so busy with all the activity in the neighborhood. They looked exhausted when we opened the door. When we explained what we found, they looked just as confused as we were.

Deciding to sell our house was not a cakewalk, it ended up being a nightmare. We were in the middle of several projects that we had started, but not finished. When I say several, I mean ten. We met with our relator and he suggested that we paint both our bedrooms and change the flooring in the bathroom. Mind you, the bedrooms had extremely old wallpaper in them. But we were like ok, we can handle that! No, we definitely could not. We tackled all of those projects head on and regretted it. I will never deal with wallpaper ever, again. We don’t normally have big arguments, but boy did we argue and cry. I mean, I cried. And then the inspections came. I don’t know how the lady before us, just two years prior, passed the same inspections, while we get stuck having to fix everything. This is how all three inspections went. I am pretty sure the only good thing that happened with our house is that it sold the first day on the market and the buyer offered $10,000 more than our asking price. Not going to lie though, I never want to sell a house ever again. Our closing date kept getting extended and we ended up finally sealing the deal a month past our original closing date. As Murphey’s Law says, “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.”

While we were in the midst of getting our house ready to sell, our next-door neighbors decided to sell their house too, mainly because they didn’t want to be in that neighborhood without us. We always watched out for each other. They bought a yacht and were going to move to Florida. So, one day my husband said, “How about we move to Florida?” I said, “Are you serious?” He said he was. We were already in the process of selling our house, I still hadn’t found a job, his job wasn’t going all that great, and both of us had always wanted to move to a warmer climate. So, I started looking for jobs and houses in Florida. I didn’t tell my family right away because I wanted to tell them in person. I already lived three hours away from them and knew they would be upset if I moved across the country.

We did it, we made the 23-hour drive from Minneapolis, MN to Tampa, FL. After of course packing up our moving truck instead of using the moving company that we had hired, whom changed its charges to almost $9,000. Yeah, I was not happy about that. I am not Miss. Moneybags over here whether I am unemployed or working!

We arrived in Tampa the beginning of October and have been staying in an Airbnb since then. We chose to stay in an Airbnb because it was cheaper than an extended stay hotel and expected me to get a job quickly so I can get preapproved for a house. Well, as you can see that still has not happened. Even though my husband is working, his credit is not good enough to get preapproved for a house unfortunately.

So, I know I am supposed to be talking about what I am thankful for, but I had to give a you a background of what my year has looked like. I am not going to lie, this year has been a rough one, it really has. I was extremely excited when this year started, but that excitement quickly abandoned me with each event. With each awful thing that happened, I tried to keep my hopes up, but I also lost hope, if that makes any sense. I tried to be happy even though on the inside I was always sad and depressed. I am still trying. Therefore, I continue to try looking back at what is good about this year and what I am thankful for. Sometimes the bad seems to outweigh the good, but we need to remind ourselves not to dwell on the negative because it isn’t healthy.

As you have read, many negative things have happened for me this year. I am sure some of these don’t even compare to some of the negative things that have happened to other people this year. But we aren’t here to compare lives. All of our lives were affected this year tremendously. Now I am going to tell you what I am thankful for.

As I mentioned before, I graduated in May with a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration with an emphasis in Marketing. I am 32 years old. I actually already have a degree that I received right after high school, but I felt that I should go back to school because many employers were looking for Bachelor’s degrees. It took me many years to figure out what I wanted to go back to school for. I had no idea and I didn’t just want to waste my money. I finally took the leap four years ago and I don’t regret it. My only regret is not doing it sooner.

My neighbors had an outdoor cat named Walter. He started to come visit us daily. Let’s just say I fell in love with the old man. When my neighbors announced they were selling, moving to Florida, and not taking Walter, I told them that we would take him. Then we decided to move to Florida. My husband and I went back and forth about bringing Walter to Florida. The long drive and where he would stay in the meantime before we got a house. I am allergic to cats or I guess anything with fur. But since he is an outdoor cat, it works. A week before we left, we decided we couldn’t take him with. We drove him all the way up to my parent’s house three hours away and now they have him and love him to pieces. The couple months I got to spend with Walter were my favorite. I looked forward to seeing him every day. One day when I was crying and told him I would miss him, he stretched up and gave me a hug.

Since I mentioned my neighbors, let’s just say they were wonderful people. Whether I was home alone or gone for the weekend, I knew they were watching over our house. They knew our neighborhood was on the rough side, so they were always trying to make sure we were safe, that our end of the block looked nice, and had no problem calling the cops if need be. We did the same for them. Our garages faced each other, so our driveways connected. Our neighbor would always remove the snow from our driveway. My husband always offered to pay him or to remove to the snow from his driveway, but he always declined. They were genuinely nice people. We were very grateful.

Even though this year has been well, a bummer, it has led to one exciting thing. My husband and I moving to Florida. We have always wanted to move to a warmer climate, me especially. I absolutely hate winter and the cold and I have dealt with it my whole life. I was actually shocked when my husband suggested moving to Florida because it was like pulling teeth to get him to move from our small hometown to Minneapolis. So far, we both love Florida and the weather. We have been able to experience a few different things so far, the beach, shelling, dolphin sunset cruise, Ripley’s Believe It or Not, and a few other things.

I am thankful that I picked this particular Airbnb to stay at for the first three months when we moved to Florida. Even though we are staying in an efficiency type apartment separate from the house, we see the hosts everyday and they are extremely nice. My husband has become good friends with their son because they are both into cars. They even cooked us dinner the other night.

The biggest thing I am thankful for is my family and my husband. I will always be thankful for them. I talk to my mom whether through texting or on the phone every day and my dad always asks my mom how I am and what we talked about. He doesn’t text as much. I would say my mom is my best friend, well besides my husband of course. If something happens, exciting or otherwise, I have to tell her. If something bad happens, like losing my job, my mom always says, "It happens for a reason." I am thankful for the positive relationship with both of my parents.

Even though I don’t talk to my sister very often, I am thankful that we have a good relationship. I am also thankful that her and her husband are getting divorced. That may sound terrible, but it was never a good marriage, ever. If you look up narcissist, he is the definition. You could tell my sister was never happy during the marriage and my nephew suffered too. Even though they are currently in the process of getting divorced, you can tell she is finally becoming her own person. She is finding her own voice and becoming stronger. That never happened while married to him. Although my nephew is still suffering from being brought back and forth between the two homes, I think he is finally now seeing the difference between how they both parent. I feel bad for my nephew, but he is a smart kid and he has so many people that are there for him and love him.

I am thankful for my grandparents. I love the fact that they are so involved with church and their community and that they love to travel. I know it comes with age, but I feel bad that their health is slowly starting to wane and it keeps them from traveling as much as they used to. I lost my other set of grandparents in 2019. My grandfather passed away in April due to two types of cancer and my grandmother a month later due to a broken heart. It all happened so quickly and unexpectedly. So, cherish the ones that you love. Even though that my grandpa had cancer, we didn’t find out until only five months prior.

I am thankful for my husband. We have been together for almost ten years and married for two years. Not going to lie, the first five years of our relationship weren’t all cupcakes and unicorns. There was a lot of arguing and tears and a couple of breakups. After all that, my husband quit drinking and smoking. It’s been over three years now since he quit. For that, I am thankful. We wouldn’t be together today had he not quit drinking. He has changed tremendously since he quit. He doesn’t go out to the bar anymore, he doesn’t lie about the most bizarre things (trust me they were ridiculous and I always knew when he was lying), and it helped him move away from the small-town life. He has bettered his life in so many ways. He has no idea how proud of him I am. I am also thankful for the fact that he doesn’t expect me to do all the typical women’s household chores. If I cook dinner, he does the dishes. If I do his laundry, he gets mad because he doesn’t think I should have to do everything. This may sound weird, but I am thankful that he is like my dad. They are both extremely hard workers and can literally fix anything. I am grateful that I found someone with the same morals and as loving as my father. Not everyone is as lucky.

After thinking about the year, I am thankful I had the good to get me through the bad. It would have been really hard trying to navigate this last year if I didn’t have any of the things that I am thankful for.