About 2022……….So far I CAN’T say that the 20’s (especially 2022 with the number of influential people it’s taken from us) have been the best years of my life. Covid and the world shutting down for months aside, it seems like the world overall just lost its ever loving mind.
I never even imagined that something could shut down the Disney theme parks for months, absolutely devastate so many industries, and take so many lives due to so many reasons or factors. And I certainly never imagined that it could still have such a long lasting effect even 2 years later.
I’ve been quoted many a times at work saying that “the world’s ending, it’s okay…”. Mostly when we get no stocked on items like FLOUR, CREAM CHEESE, CHOCOLATE, and many other basic staples in the pastry world.
I think we can all agree that the 20’s have dealt out more than their fair share of trauma and drama.
But then, a few weeks back, I stopped, like really stopped, one day when I was walking through my park on my daily location check. I spent about ten minuets watching our guests as they went through the largest theme park in the world. This fall & winter was the first time the parks had returned to a pre-pandemic level of operation. As I observed the people it hit me that it was hard to tell a difference between then and now. People were having fun, enjoying being out in the silly warm weather despite it being fall/winter, and it helped me kind of reshape the way I’ve been looking at things.
Don’t get me wrong, there is still a very real and long lasting effect going on. Or maybe it’s just that we as a society finally realize it’s okay to be in our feels, and share that openly with the world with less fear of being judged. But I realized, for me, I don’t necessarily want to go back to the way I lived my life, acted, or thought about things before the pandemic. I’d rather embrace the things that have changed about me, what I want, how I view myself, and what I do to help myself get to a more healthy mental and physical state.
2022 especially hit me hard because of the sheer number of losses we suffered. Especially the ones that we lost because of their struggle with mental health. Jason David Frank, is one that particularly haunts my mind, because he was my very first celebrity crush. I remember watching the OG Power Rangers in elementary school and I can honestly, and without shame say, that Jason David Frank’s character Tommy single handle shaped my taste in guys.
I know, I know, how geeky of me. Guess what I don’t care that it may be silly or geeky to some. I like what I like, and it doesn’t matter the reason why.
I’ve also embraced the good that has come from the last 2 years. My deepened love of foreign drama shows, K-pop music, the friends I’ve made through those two loves. I finished 3 manuscripts in those 2 years, and even though I’ve not published any of them yet, I am finding hope that I may be able to change that! I’ve also have managed to cut back on how much I allow what other people think about me matter to me. Though, I can’t say that I’ve completely stopped letting what others think of me effect my life, or how I view myself.
BUT I can say that I think I have become a better version of myself. And I’ve found healthy ways to embrace the things I love and not be afraid to show it. Those things I don’t think would have happened if the pandemic hadn’t literally ripped the world apart.
So, about 2022…
I will certainly NOT say that it is the best year of the 20’s, because it is NOT! However, I am choosing to focus on the good things that I’ve seen and experienced through 2022. I want to use those to put myself into a better place, and state of mind going into 2023.
I am also hoping that I can showcase more of the things I love. Not just who I am as an author, through this page in 2023. So keep your eyes open to what’s around you. Try to find a different way to look at things in your life. Because you never know when that one moment of looking at things in a different light can change your way of seeing things.
<3 always L.H. Nicole
