Hard Reset

As we pick up our lives from the surreal events that have happened from the past thirteen months, some of us have to look inward and truly ask ourselves what we need to do with our lives moving forward. Do we say that this is a fresh start? A clean slate from the literal nightmares that were shown on our phones or the television news? I don’t think so; not for me at least. I cannot tell myself that it is starting from scratch because then I would have to ignore all of the things that plagued us as a family and us as a community. Last year I contracted COVID. I can't ignore that I am still feeling the effects of this virus that some people still believe it is nothing more than a glorified flu. It made me really realize where I was in this awkward and often confusing puzzle called life. I wasn't inflicted with it as hard as others; if you had to categorize my experience with COVID, it was mild, but still very scary. Losing the capacity to breathe for small periods of time could do that to a person. I wasn't hospitalized, but after hearing co-workers battle and lose with this virus made me fear the possibilities every single day I had symptoms. The after-effects still need to be examined, but because I experienced that, it made me realize that I wasn't doing as much as I could to make myself or my family happy. I mean, we do as much as we can while quarantined and with limited places to go. Even with most of the establishments in town are now open and you drive by them and shake your head as most are not wearing masks properly, you still have to make do with what you have. I realized that my mental health took a nosedive after COVID. Was it because of COVID? Was it a combination of my past mental health issues from the military? Was it quarantine? Was it worrying about money while all this was going on? I have no idea. All I know is right now, as I write this, I am recovering from a horrible spiral inside my own head. I have battled this before, but for some reason this was ten times worse. I need to work on my mind. The hardest part is recognizing that something is indeed off. Now it's time to work on it. So what did I come up with so far? Well for starters, I am not happy with where I am at professionally. I am at that age now where I start to question EVERYTHING I've done thus far and why it has landed me here at this moment, right now. I can tell you that I am not pleased about it and I am currently making changes. What am I doing? I am pursuing a dream of mine that I had since I was a freshman in High School. I'm trying to start a side career as a writer. Yes, I know. How original. How many people you know keep saying every year this is the year I start writing that novel. I've said that almost every year for the past ten years. Writing something that big is insanely difficult. I know there are those, who I hate by the way, who can write a best seller on their first attempt and get lucky with publishers and marketing and blah, blah, blah. It makes me angry, but we all know that there are some people in this world that don't need to work as hard as others. So I am trying. I actually did write a book two years ago and I'm still working at it, polishing it, finding editors for cheap is not an easy task. I have multiple denial letters from publishers and I kind of wear them as badges of honor. What makes this year different for a fresh start? I have to refocus how I get my work out there. Is this a platform for me? I obviously have no idea, but it is worth a shot. That is what I'm doing. I am taking shots. I can't sit and do nothing and expect that magical publishing fairy to grant me my wish with a book deal. I need to have laser focus. That is why I enter these challenges, that is why I devote time everyday to write. Blogs, social media posts, editing my book; it doesn't matter, just as long as I work. I want to tell stories. I want to describe how an Orc wildly misses a hit to an old wise elven fighter. I want to tell my personal experiences with the military and COVID. I want to give advice about mental health, stress, veteran issues. I just want to write, and hopefully get paid for it. I don't know what will come from any of this, but I know that I want my fresh start to be words on paper.

Cliché as it is, I am also refocusing on my physical health. I noticed that my pants fit much tighter than they did the same time last year and I need to start taking better care of myself. My wife and I recently had a son two years ago and I started to do that old man thing where you start to count how old YOU will be when your child turns eighteen. I quickly realized that I can't eat those triple cheeseburgers and jalapenos like I used to. That doesn’t say that I can never have them again, I just can't have them every other day. Before you ask. Yes, I was very nearly having those every other day. I am feeling like the meat armor I call my body is now weak, spongy, and I fear I am one sneeze away from throwing my back out again. The military did a number on my body, which makes a lot of things that should be normal difficult to do, but it is my fault for not keeping up with my body's maintenance. It shouldn't take a new year to commit to making healthy choices, but alas, here I am. I am now paying close attention though. Is it because everything now hurts and I can't get up from a chair without making dad noises? Perhaps. The real motivator is my wife. She is taking the steps needed to fix her health situation too. It is incredible to see her take a stand and fix something that she said she should have done a long time ago. I don't know what her personal push was to start. I didn't ask. I didn't want to ask either. Sometimes you don't need to know what the pushing point was, just as long as they are making steps towards their goal. As a husband, you have to just say yes babe and watch her work. It motivates me. There was a time where my US Marine uniform felt like armor and underneath was a chiseled man in his twenties. Oh how time messes with you when you don't keep up that amount of maintenance. So yes, I am on the starting path of a healthy lifestyle. Even as I write this, I am realizing that I'm not doing this for myself. I'm doing this for my family. It is not easy by no means. But I know it is time for a change. I don't want to make dad noises when I'm hugging my sons at their graduation or marriage.

Lastly, the thought of a factory reset on our lives sounds like an amazing thing. We all need to wipe away the previous year. Some of us need to wipe away multiple years, and I'm one of them. A lot of us experienced some great loss and pain. Sudden and out of nowhere. I am reminded of my friend, who passed from a heart attack. I am reminded of my co-workers who didn't think that a virus would be their ends. I am reminded of the local small businesses who banded together and helped each other during these troubling and confusing times. I am reminded of the obvious hate and prejudice that was continuously bombarded on our eyes, either in written form or right in front of us. It hurts as a father to explain to my oldest child that there are some places that we just can't go because of the color of my skin and the color of his mother's. It is a reality that I hope changes, but only time will tell. It is time to have that hard talk with ourselves. I wonder how some people can be so blinded by their own curtains. Then again, I am not. I have been around long enough to know that some people will never see the light. You hope for their hard resets, but all you can do is just work on you.

So I now look at things with such a different set of eyes. They are older eyes looking through a pair of corrective lenses, but I would like to think that my glasses are a metaphor. Corrective lenses are meant to fix your sight. They are meant to allow you to see clear. We all could use a set of corrective glasses from time to time; more than others, but the fact that you recognize that you need them, speaks loudly to your growing process. Here's to 2021, cheers.