My COVID Slumber Party

I remember the surreal day that we were put on lock down. I was so clueless I honestly didn't even know corona was a thing. And there I was questioning if we were even aloud to go to the grocery store, learning how to create a makeshift sterilized mask, using hand sanitizer until my skin was dry, and questioning every time I bit my fingernails if I had caught the dreaded corona!

Luckily I never did, or that I know of.

But then there was this sense of new beginning, of hope, of a light at the end of the tunnel that I was gonna come out of this thing even better than before, conquering my creative blocks and becoming super online famous with my writing and art.

….as zillions of other artists did…and my charisma quickly faded. None of that lasted very long.

I felt like (and still feel like) an ant in a giant world that I had little to no existence in, and no one to notice me. I could stand in the middle of Downtown Dallas where I live and scream, “Helloooo?? Is anyone there?!?!?” And no one would notice…I literally could have when this whole thing started, and fuck I probably should have! (I wish I would have)

Quarantine was the slumber party that just would not end.

If you are a gal like me who grew up in the 90's you remember going to slumber party’s in junior high. We'd all get there fresh and ready to party, then by midnight we broke out into groups despising each other, plotting against the other group. Looking back it was probably just a sign that it was time to go to bed, but we fought it out, somehow turned it around into a talent show…or maybe it was the talent show that broke us into the groups that hated each other, who knows. The next thing you knew the sun was coming up and we were crashed out all over the floor until noon.

And here we are just exiting this slumber party that just would not end!

It started with high spirits, had a talent show in the middle somewhere, followed by weeks of baking bread that I swore I was going to deliver to the homeless and start a nonprofit with. That followed with me hating my spouse like he was a slumber party pal from junior high, and then coming back together to plot against the children...just like that ol' fashion slumber party I remembered growing up with.

The slumber party that would never end. The ordering food day and night just to have something to do, and the new cocktail for every weekend that gave me the hangover from hell the next day, ultimately ending my drinking habit all together. The pranks, the forts in the living room, and oh the only thing to do was go for a walk…which was what everyone was doing and there were so many damn people out that they had to close the damn parks down! Which led my house into becoming a dog shit and piss park of its own.

Here I am now, fatter than when it all started, not a creative endeavor executed to its end...like I swore I would do.

Well, when I look back on it (and I'm not in a mood to beat myself up) that isn’t completely true. I’ve done a lot actually…inspired by nothing but boredom and the fact that I had no vehicle to become a gig app entrepreneur, and Rover had been over saturated with everyone else in the neighborhood swearing that they were the best to walk your dog. (cough....Promo code IAMS98140...cough). They had caught on to it way before I had.

I felt like all I had was my creativity to lean on, in combination with the thought of going back to school to stretch out the time of my student loans being due. I'll admit that I wasn't inspired to go back to school, I just hoped that I could stay in it long enough that some bill would pass saying that my student loans could be swept under the rug and forgotten.

And the car...yea that was fun.

I didn’t have a car to be an all time famous gig app entrepreneur because it got repoed!

On mother fucking Christmas Eve!

So now it's all over, it's all said and done, the slumber party has finally come to an end. The only thing I feel that I have truly accomplished is the additional 70 pounds I’ve managed to gain and keep on gaining.

What inspires me now to create and continue to create is a lot of things. Sometimes it’s because I have to for school, which I also enrolled in to force inspiration upon myself. Sometimes it's because I get these wild hairs up my ass that make me think that I am going to conquer the whole damn internet and become famous with whatever I’m having fun doing that week, whether it be my stop motion movies, my collaging, or the rants I decide to go on and post to my facebook...only to turn around and erase because I'm embarrassed of myself or think I should be paid to post! At the end of the day the thing that inspires me now are just the force I put on myself to do...To just do.

To be inspired enough each day to at least brush my teeth because truthfully I doubt I’ll take a shower. To just step out of bed and swear I am going to just walk down the stairs and out the door once a day to take my dog out, who has refused to even go out, going on a standoff to hold it all in and be locked away in her kennel because she’d rather do that and find a way to get loose and shit all over the living room than to just walk down the stairs with me just once a day to get out. (We have a love hate relationship and fight over this several times a day me and her)

Ok big rambles there. The slumber party that would never end finally ended, and we are all free to go about life like it all never happened. But you can’t help but remember that it did. We all force ourselves out of bed each day, it’s not just me.

It can't be just me!

We are all wearing oversized kimonos and have Mad Max hair do's when we force ourselves out to the grocery store if we didn't order enough of our groceries online. It can't be just me!

Or maybe it is just me...that was very specific and I never notice anyone else in a kimono with hair that belongs in a Mad Max timeline when I venture out.

I’m not the only bitter 41 year old out there thinking I’m the most hideous thing to grace everyone’s presence...I can't be. I think most people feel this way. Getting inspired to do much of anything is next to impossible, but we do it. I do it.

I roll out of bed after sleeping about 12 hours every morning and swear that this is gonna be the day that I find my inspiration to live again. To create again...and if I don’t, that’s ok, because there is always tomorrow….or the next day.