If you asked me on new years of 2020 what I thought the year would look like, I would say – bowling, fishing, cross country, start of senior year. Everything in the middle, the same as it always has been. Friends, family, video games, more video games, and working my horrendous job. Except, we all know what happens. The last day of in – person school, assignments in the morning, locked down . . . what do I do? When is that? More random school work . . . more video games. We’re in a pandemic. It didn’t really hit me until towards the end of Junior year that there was a pandemic, it was real, and things wouldn’t be changing for a long time.

I’ve always thought of myself as the out there guy, just a couple of close friends, and some hobbies. Never really valued time with others. This past year has definetley changed that. I still played plenty of games with friends over voice chat, and had a Cain family zoom not too long ago, but something about not wreaking havoc on downtown with your friends can’t be replaced.

While the social distancing and isolation has been extremely dull, I believe plenty of good came out of this year, and I’m definetley appreciative of it. One small thing, snow days being a thing of the past? GOOD. I want to get out of school on time, I want my summer! Also, I lost my job. Nothing on the people there, but one of the best things that happened to me this year. I was working 4 hour weeks and making ok pay, but it was far from what I needed. A lot of people know now I work at Portillo’s, and I’m making about what I did at my last job and I work 25 – 30 hour weeks. It’s definitely hard, some nights I work until 11 even, but I now make in a month what I didn’t even make in a year.

I’ll dip into 2021 (right now), as what happened in 2020 recently affected my life in a big way. Going along with my job, I finally got what I’ve been saving for the past 6 months. If you read one of my previous blog posts, it was about cars I was considering buying. I was set on a mustang, and after test driving a few, I got what I thought was the best balance of aesthetics and room (the terminator body style I was talking about – TINY interior, not the ideal choice for people 6ft +).  Anyways, here’s a picture of the new ride.

Yeah, 2021 sucked. We all got more distant from friends and family, some of us got covid, a good handful lost jobs. The decade isn’t starting out strong, but we learn from hardships and mistakes. The best thing we can do is be there for each other now and in the future, but most importantly, the more we can take away from the  past year, the better off we will all be.