If 2020 was the Year of the Pandemic, then 2021 seemed like the year of Pandemic Fatigue. We spent 2021 trying to establish a New Normal — and sometimes succeeding, until the next COVID variant would strike.
Work
I worked remotely for most of the year — mainly because of the remodeling of the IT floors at our downtown headquarters. I came into the office for a couple days in March to clean out my cube, spent one week in a “hoteling” cube while Connor was at a summer camp downtown, and finally moved into my new cube in November.
Karate
Karate classes had already resumed in-person by the start of 2021. Once the building occupancy restrictions were lifted, though, parents were finally allowed back into the dojo to watch class instead of watching via Facebook Live.
Over the course of the year, Connor and I continued to show up, put in the work, and ascend through the ranks. We ended the year as red-black belts (aka junior black belts), and are tentatively slated to start black belt training in earnest this spring.
Health & Fitness
At one of my med checks this summer, I confided to my Primary Care Provider that my depression seemed to be returning, despite me taking my medications as prescribed. He prescribed me a second, additional medication (Abilify, an antipsychotic) to supplement my antidepressant.
He also referred me to a therapist — which he had also done years before, but nothing ever came of it. This time, though, the referral process was silky smooth. The therapist I signed up with happened to be the only one taking new patients at the time, and I’m glad things worked out the way they did, because we jive together really well. I’ve been meeting with her every two weeks since June, and she’s helped me work through things I didn’t even know were workable.
The combination of new meds and talk therapy did seem to help my mood… but my weight skyrocketed. With my therapist’s help, I identified what had changed to cause the weight gain: starting new meds. I did some research (i.e. Googled “Abilify weight gain”), and immediately contacted my doctor. Since the repercussions of gaining weight outweighed any mood boost the Abilify had provided, he agreed that I could taper off of the drug.
Once I removed the Abilify from the mix, my mood stayed mostly at the “meh, I’m so fat” level — but the weight did not immediately melt off like I’d hoped it would. Around Thanksgiving, he suggested that I also taper off of the antidepressant I’d been taking for the past few years, and try a new medication that had become available fairly recently. I tapered off of Prozac as directed — and was amazed to find that I actually felt fine. My baseline mood was more of what I’d come to understand as “normal” for me, even taking into account the weight gain bummer.
So, with the blessing of my doctor, I didn’t start on any new meds, and I wrapped up the year with fewer prescriptions than at the start.
To be fair, my weight had been ever-so-slowly creeping up over time, even before adding “medication-induced weight gain” into the mix. It just accelerated after that. I can see it in my face to an extent, but it’s mainly come back on as belly fat.
What confused me about the weight gain (before I drew the Rx connection) was that I had stayed fairly stable during the pandemic up to that point, even considering my lack of activity while working remote. In 2021, I walked an average of 4,094 steps per day. That’s an improvement over my 2020 pandemic lockdown average of 3,106 steps, but still far shy of my pre-Covid average of 6,000-7,000 steps per day.
Speaking of Covid… since my employer is a health care provider, I was able to jump on the vaccination train earlier than some, getting dose #1 in late January and dose #2 in late February. Connor wasn’t eligible for the vaccine until later in the year, and he did manage to contract Covid in the spring. That resulted in a two-week quarantine for our entire household.
House
One Friday evening in April, I looked out into the sunroom to find that the outer pane of our sunroom door was shattered.
The best we could ever figure was that a pebble had gone airborne while the mowers were trimming or blowing the clippings off the walk, and it happened to hit the glass just so. We spent a good chunk of time the next day cleaning up the bits of tempered glass from the door and the back patio.
While we were at it, Aaron climbed up on the ladder and cleaned out the one downspout off of the sunroom that had been almost completely clogged for a Very Long Time.
Other home improvements of note:
- We replaced the shower head in our main bathroom, after the leaky hose from the old shower head finally got to be too much.
- May: We got the valve for our sump pump replaced. It didn’t really fix the THUMP of the water hammer that echoes through the entire house, though — for that, we’d have to get all of the non-standard-sized pipes replaced.
- July: I successfully replaced a toilet handle.
- December: I backed into the garage door. While it was closed. Because I forgot to open it.
Hobbies
Bookbinding
Hand-binding my first notebook in November 2020 started me on a new hobby that I find meditative and satisfying on several levels.
When my work announced that they were looking for vendors for an in-office craft show for the 2020 holiday season, I went for it and signed up for a booth. I sold a handful of notebooks and got a couple of commissions out of it, as well.
Honestly, I’m still hovering within the Consciously Competent stage of bookbinding, although some aspects of it are still new to me the more I research. (For example, I’m now a little embarrassed now of my warped notebook covers that bow out the absolutely wrong way.)
I like giving away my notebooks as gifts, and using scrap paper to practice my craft and make small notebooks for myself to just brain dump or doodle in. I keep meaning to photograph the excess inventory from the craft show and post everything to Etsy, but as of this writing, I haven’t made it a priority yet.
Sewing
I didn’t feel like I did as much sewing in 2021 as I did the previous couple of years… but in going back through my sewing log, I found that I still did quite a bit.
| Grow Bag | 5 |
| Pajama/Lounge Pants | 3 |
| Drawstring Bag | 3 |
| Tank Top | 2 |
| Pillow Cover | 1 |
| Plushie | 1 |
| Fabric Mask | 1 |
| Pocket Extension | 1 |
| Nerf Gun Shoulder Strap | 1 |
| Pajama Top | 1 |
Photography
I still like to take a film camera with me when I travel, or when I go somewhere new or interesting, but the idea of photographing for the purpose of testing new cameras or refining techniques or just making art… it wasn’t at the top of my list in 2021.
Even so, there were still times when I happened to see a composition and I just couldn’t let the opportunity pass by — like when we were getting ready to return home from my grandfather’s funeral in September.
Bonsai
As I wrote back in May, I blame the YouTube algorithm for this one.
For the bonsai hobbyist (as opposed to the bonsai professional), it doesn’t necessarily take a lot of consistent effort — it’s more of a seasonal thing. At least, that’s the gist I get from various sources. I know that there’s a lot I don’t know about bonsai, but I’m hoping that some of the volunteer pine and maple seedlings I potted up over the course of the gardening season will mature into interesting specimens over time.
Miscellany
In July, I bought myself a used Cricut Maker cutting machine. I’d been interested in the possibilities before, but once Connor came back from a summer camp totally stoked from using a Silhouette cutting machine, I realized that it could be super handy to have in my crafting/making arsenal. I mostly used it for making stickers for my day planner and calendars, but it also came in handy for making some plant tags, t-shirt decals, keychains/charms, iron-on patches, greeting cards, and other experimental crafty things.
Farewells
Grandpa Cook, 1928-2021
We had wanted to visit more recently, of course… but Grandma and Grandpa Cook were old and their health was frail, so they weren’t always up for visitors, even before Covid.
Although I wasn’t super close with my Grandpa Cook, he had been a fixture throughout my life. It was so strange to know he was gone, but I was grateful to get the chance to say goodbye and to see Grandma one last time before she passed the following January.
Mei Kitty, 2014-2021
In November, our 17-year-old cat Mei started having trouble catching her breath, so we made an appointment with the vet. That appointment ended much differently than any of us had expected, and it tore us apart. We knew it was coming eventually, but since she’d gotten through several other medical close calls, we didn’t expect this to be The One.
I haven’t ugly-cried so hard probably since my Memaw was dying.
Epilogue
This was a strange year in so many ways; the typical summary doesn’t seem to fit. Some things felt “normal” again, like going to visit my Mom for a long weekend and sending Connor to summer day camps. Some things were weird, like quarantining when Connor got Covid in the spring. Some things didn’t happen at all, like our once-annual vacation. Our only option was to roll with the changes and see what would come next.
Life marches on.