Pretend this is my 2020 Christmas Card
I love getting snail mail - all my grown up friends with families (or furbabies) send new "Happy Holiday" cards and I stick them on my fridge. I never got into sending stuff like that but imagine this post as a letter inside a card that I would send:
Happy Holidays!
I'm sitting here remembering that I have a blog that I've neglected all year. Liz, you've been alone in lockdown, why haven't you updated regularly? Well, it's been a hell of a year and it's been hard to do much more besides take things day by day. And that's OK! (I've learned to be kind to myself) ... let me explain.
Back in March when the world shut down and we were all starting to go a little stir crazy doing nothing but watch covid spread around the world, I joined TikTok. To be honest, I had just wrapped a job in February and with my next job interviews cancelled and hiring put on hold, I thought it was a good time to learn how to edit videos with the app - (something good to put on my resume, right?!) I ended up being sucked into mindlessly scrolling the FYP (For You Page) watching a bunch of young Gen-Z kids dancing and cute animals doing cute things. I also realized that the algorithm was suspiciously pushing videos that were just too on the nose.. especially when I saw a video of a girl singing a song called "Fuck 2020" - I'm not kidding when I say I really related to that song. Here are the lyrics:
December 31st, I grabbed a beer
Threw it up, said, "2020 is my year, bitches"
And I honestly thought that that was true
Until I gave this motherfucker like a month or two
This is getting kind of ridiculous at this point
Yo, my cat died and a global pandemic took over my life
And I put out some music that nobody liked
So I got really sad and bored at the same time
And that's why I'm like
Lowkey fuck 2020
The irony is - at the time the song came out I had experienced the loss of Lady (my dog) at the end of 2019 and I was starting a headache inducing, all online, Divorce process before lockdown ruined all good plans. Now, at the end of 2020, Charlie (my cat) actually did die and this song will forever be my 2020 anthem.
While all those things were pretty big, devastating life experiences one after the other, there were positive things that happened this year that kept me on my feet. I was able to take a trip to England with my mom right before lockdown (and the realization that covid was so deadly). I fostered some amazing dogs and a litter of kittens. A video I made of the kittens went viral on TikTok which gave me a really great excuse to keep creating content. I had also started a new routine of walking at the park about an hour every morning as often as I could. I wasn't perfect at keeping track but I know that I definitely walked over 400 miles since March.
At the end of May I deleted my Facebook - for SO many reasons I won't get into but it was the same weekend George Floyd was murdered so I funneled my energy into the BLM movement. I put energy towards re-educating myself, being a better ally, and donating what time & money I could towards the fight for justice and systemic change. I also got involved in politics by giving public comments to LA City Council, sending emails to Senate Reps, writing postcards to swing state voters, and tried my best to amplify unheard voices when possible.
Eventually, I started working again on a big production for NBC and was thankfully able to stay Covid-19 free the whole time. It also (thankfully) kept me distracted during the last stretch before & right after the election when I was feeling the most frustrated/helpless at just how everything was. (I honestly wondered if you could die from frustration. The answer is technically No but anxiety attacks can make you feel like you are) However, we did it and I'm hopeful. Like "10ton block of anxiety" off my shoulders "hopeful". I know there's a long way to go but at least we don't have he-who-must-not-be-named in charge for much longer.
Charlie's illness blindsided me right before Thanksgiving. He had kidney failure - something that cats are really good at hiding until it's too late to do anything about. He already had stomach issues and a heart issue that made treating his kidneys too hard on his body. He was able to have a couple normal days but ended up really miserable after the holiday. I'm just grateful the vet let me be with him in the end. Now I'm working with a new dog rescue organization and I've got foster pup, Honey Bunny, attached to my hip until we find her a new home.
I have no idea what 2021 has in store. In the short term, I'm looking forward to getting back to work again. At least I know from working on one show with Covid precautions that it's not easy but it is possible to produce a show. In the meantime, I'm going to keep fostering. I still have a backlog of travel posts I need to write for trips I took over 2 years ago - Budapest, Copenhagen, Dubrovnik. I also never really posted much about my trip to the UK with my mom. Maybe writing those will satisfy my itch to travel - which is seriously strong right now that I've got nothing currently going on LA.
I also had a "Safe at Home" list of tv, movies, and books I devoured during lockdown thinking it would just be a month or two but it turned into a full year of binge watching pretty much everything I could while also trying new crafty things like cross stitch and making things for my gallery wall. My favorites to watch were Book-to-TV series like Little Fires Everywhere and Normal People, crazy documentaries like Tiger King, and terrible(-ly good) dating shows like Love Island UK. I'll definitely need to write some reviews.
So that's it. Feel free to imagine this came as a folded up life update inside a 2020 card that looked like this:
Stay safe and wear a mask (over your nose!)
