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Dear Covid, I hate your stinking guts. You make me vomit! You are the scum between my toes. Love, Ashley Obviously stolen from The Little Rascals, but pretty much sums up most of my feelings about the panny. 2020 was more than Covid...doesn't seem like it, though. I went into the new year thinking this was the year I was gonna do shit I never did before. I set intentions for my year and then covid happened. Joke was on me LMAO! Or was it…? At the top of the list of new things I wanted to do was attending community events. The first event I went to after making this decision was the Dolla Art Show, which Tej hosted. I know, I went so far away from Tej didn’t I? Lol well anyway, I had an AMAZING time! I even ran into people I knew and could socialize a little more than I anticipated. It was also the first time I ever showed my belly in public (outside of my bathing suit). Here are the pictures I was able to capture from this event. The next big thing, which was a week later, was my 28th birthday!!! Yall, all my friends stood me up except for one. We figured we would catch up with each other the following weekend or something. Kiera and I had a great time catching up over dinner. Tiera came and joined us for the paint and sip. Here are the photos of the last time I went out without paralyzing anxiety in 2020. Also, another fashion first: I tucked my shirt in lol I can't find the picture I thought I had to show the whole outfit, but check us out! On Thursday, March 12, 2020, it was announced that schools in Ohio would close due to Covid-19. The schools were ordered to close by end of day on Monday. My school made the decision to close right then and there. So we had ONE DAY to get the kids ready for two weeks of “Distance Learning”. Should I add that we didn’t even have copy paper in the building?? LOL! We were scrambling to figure this out. I think I was numbed by shock and the impending deadline. Idk how we prepared for that, but we did. The teachers in my building did some AMAZING things in a very short period of time. By that following Wednesday, I was in a full blown state of panic. I couldn’t breathe for months. I couldn’t really do my job. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. My friend kept saying “Ashley, you have anxiety.” I’m like how in the hell is this anxiety? It wasn’t just moments of panic. It was a constant unchanging state of pain, fear, and uncertainty. Everything hurt, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t sleep at times, and then I would sleep all day. I lost 13 pounds in a week because I couldn’t eat. I couldn't make any of it stop. I was like something has to give. I felt crazy. I didn't recognize myself or understand why this was happening to me. I seriously considered committing myself to some kind of hospital. I thought it would feel better to be numb than to feel what I was feeling. There’s so much more to this, but we don’t have to get into the details. Amidst the chaos of Covid and anxiety, I got Noelle! Noelle is my car, for those who don’t know. I just woke up one morning, saw this horoscope, and took steps to find Noelle. I didn’t even tell anyone I was doing it until the day she showed up at my door. Noelle is my other bestie! She's me in car form. She's short and sassy...girly doesn't like road bullies. She becomes the road bully.  On the days that I could function as a human, I would attend virtual events with my girls. We had a few game nights and birthday parties. I don’t know about you guys, but I did a lot of shopping during this time. Especially back when we thought we would still have a hot girl summer lol I used these events as more opportunities to take risks. Covid changed school. It sucks. I battled with no longer having confidence in the one thing I had right in my life. My job has been the place where I received most of my joy. I had a purpose and what I was doing was meaningful. Distance learning became a thing and I was seriously like wtf? Most of what’s important to teach in kindergarten is social emotional. Of course there’s content, but it is usually interwoven with the social emotional learning. I mean my kids learn from each other and I’m there facilitating. I WAS STOMPED! And then people were deciding all this stupid stuff....at the last minute. It was a mess. School is a place where so many intersections meet, but the two that caused me the most stress were race and socioeconomic status. Those things caused groups of people to experience the pandemic differently and somehow that was shocking to people and was grossly ignored. I’ve always been one to advocate on behalf of my students, but this year, I had to advocate for their parents, too. I’m not going to get into too many details, but I fought VERY hard for what should’ve been basic compassion. I exhausted myself so much fighting for them, that by the time I needed to fight for myself, there was no more fight left. There were only decisions. I had to decide what my non-negotiables were and hold myself accountable to sticking to them. I had to put myself above everything else they got going over there because THEY TRIPPIN! But again, I won’t get into the details LOL All that matters is that my parents and students are okay. Some of my parents seemed like they didn’t care how hard I was working and others recognized my efforts. At a time where I felt unseen, unheard, and not effective, that recognition seriously made all the difference. Sorry, the first one is cut off and I'm not a techy person that can figure out why lol All the craziness of 2020 and Covid led me to therapy, which has changed my life!! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Highly Recommend FOR EVERYBODY!
Therapy led to so many breakthroughs and it's only been six months. I realized that I was suffering a lot longer than I ever knew and the panny just exacerbated everything. I had to start looking deeply at my entire self; past, present, and future. I had to start looking more closely at my relationships; how am I showing up and how are they showing up? I had to start looking at what I want my life to look like versus how it actually looks. I had to start making different choices and remembering what I intended to do this year. Covid did take many things, but it didn't stop me as much as I thought it had. I'm coming out of this year with lots of things to be proud of. I didn't want to write a whole paragraph for everything so here's a list:
The thing that I'm most proud of is choosing me in places and spaces that I never have before. How was your 2020? What did you do to make yourself proud? Be safe tonight! Love you guys :)
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