“I don’t understand why this is taking so long.”

I’m really lazy when I try to access my blog. I type in the URL, hope WordPress recognizes me and then I go to my backdoor from there. Lately when I’ve tried to access it, however, the site gets found and then my Chrome browser waits.

… and waits.

… and waits.

In the meantime, I get up, I go do my laundry. I wash my dishes and play a game of Tetris. I braise a roast, bake a potato and brew some beer. I grow some tomatoes in the backyard, wash my car, swing by my dentist for an unscheduled appointment then hit the DMV for no reason before I return home and see that my page has finally loaded.

This has gone on for months. Maybe all of 2020. Yet the fact that I have only written four posts this year is more of an indicator that I’ve lost inspiration to write than it is me being fed up with my site’s slowness.

Something huge was happening behind the scenes, however, dear readers.

It seems as though the last few very chaotic years of my life have all but drained the last bit of inspiration for creativity from my soul. They’ve made me a workaholic who can never catch up and will never achieve this weird idea of success that even I don’t know the shape of, yet I’m always striving toward.

And then 2020 happens? How could anything GOOD happen in a year where a worldwide pandemic has changed nearly every aspect of our daily lives? A huge percentage of the population is too scared to leave their homes while another percentage still thinks it’s a hoax of some kind and intentionally goes about their daily lives recklessly. Regardless of the legitimacy of the virus, a sad reality is that social gatherings will likely never be the same, many people have lost jobs, businesses and loved ones, and those of us who are fortunate enough to still be employed and have our families are not seeing said families with the same frequency and have likely changed work arrangements — indefinitely, in my case.

Add to that the chaotic and anxiety-inducing election year we’re in. Everyone with a Facebook account or a blog has an opinion and while all opinions are valid (as opinions), most are formed by ill-researched or otherwise intentionally sensationalist journalism, thereby causing a greater divide among the American people. And if you want to make it even more confusing, statistics show that the vast majority of Americans actually agree on most of your typical “hot-button” issues that divide us so badly. Literally, we fight and argue and stress ourselves out over disagreements … with people we actually agree with more often than not.

Not enough? At the time of this writing, in 2020 we’ve said goodbye to Sean Connery, Eddie Van Halen, Chadwick Boseman, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Little Richard, John Lewis, Regis Philbin, Kobe Bryant, Toots Hibbert, Wilford Brimley, Jerry Stiller and Kenny Rogers just to name a few.

The year 2020 is a real drag, y’all …

… well, for some, it has been. It’s kinda been the bomb for me. I’ve said many times just in the last few months that 2020 has kinda been my year. I’ve gone on coaching-style rants about how 2020 hasn’t been “bad” or at least any worse than any other year ever. We’re just being told every day that it’s bad and that we need some kind of reset button on the year. We’ve allowed our perception to shift to one that sees the entire year as a wash and we should just stall out until we’re given another chance in 2021.

I don’t know how but for me it just continues to get better. I’m on track to finish this year stronger than ever, happier than I’ve been in 36 years and more satisfied with who I am and where I’m at than I’ve ever been. I have a great amount of inspiration under me these days, and what better way to express that than by dusting off Beard Hair In My Coffee and diving in to NaBloPoMo?

WordPress heard my cries of pain last time I started — and finished — an entire game of Monopoly in the time it took my site to load and they passed me a link to ways to make my site faster. One included updating my very old theme, which I did, and now things are running much more smoothly. Just like every other aspect of my life at the moment. And I can’t wait to share it with you all, o my brothers and only friends* — in ways that I couldn’t have even imagined when I started this blog 10 years and 736 posts ago.

*That’s an A Clockwork Orange reference. Read a book, ya dopes.

It’s been an exciting last few weeks and I’ll get to that starting tomorrow. For tonight, here’s a photo from the end of Summer that adequately sums up where my heart is in 2020.

Ever onward.