Elicia Hyder, Skeeball, and a Mariachi Band!

I finally broke out!

Because of my lung damage from chemo, I’m high-risk for COVID. And because of my over-active imagination (that serves me well as a fiction writer) I’m also high-risk for anxiety! Haha.

It’s funny because it’s true. My brain and body totally teamed up against me in 2020. 🤣

Example: On Christmas Day, in the Nashville bombing that took out our internet, I was CONVINCED it was the beginning of the Apocalypse, but that’s a funny story for another day…

For this story, I want to start by comforting you hand-wringers (my people!) with this disclaimer: I’m married to a first responder, so most everyone we know has already been vaccinated. I’m also still being cautious, and doing my best to protect others because that’s how we stop this thing!

But while the world is trying to climb out of this virus pit, I have to find some balance because I’m faced with a very harsh reality:

COVID might kill me, but the isolation and anxiety was actually killing me a little more every day.

I need people.

We all need people.

Suicide, alcoholism, drug abuse, and domestic violence have all skyrocketed in 2020 because isolation + desperation + boredom + opportunity can easily equal a different kind of deadly sickness that we’re ALL high-risk for.

AT THE SAME TIME, I can’t endanger others in my quest for liberation and sanity. I must do my part: socially distance, wear my mask, wash my hands, don’t go out with symptoms, and most importantly—behave as though I am an asymptomatic carrier because I just might be! I treat strangers as carefully as I would treat my older parents, my asthmatic sister, or my cancer-survivor self. Because those strangers are someone else’s parents, brothers, sisters, etc.

Hell, that was a looooong disclaimer. Climbing down off my soapbox now.

Sorry, not sorry. ❤️

Onto the story.

After months of isolation, I’m finally venturing back into the world more and more. Oh, how I’ve missed it! The food, the friends, the laughter… My heart (and my belly) are full!

The other night, some friends and I went to Plaza Mariachi in Nashville. Is it a market? an entertainment venue? a food court with a bar? No one knows!

It was SO MUCH FUN. But Davidson county is still under strict social distancing laws (thank you!) so there was no salsa dancing, which I’d secretly hoped for.

Without the ability to get up and dance—which I will totally suck at but love every second of—coupled with the language barrier, after awhile, the evening waned a bit for me.

But they had an arcade! I grabbed the other girls at the table and the skeeball challenge was on!

One of our trio is a female cop, trained in aim and precision, so after she smoked us the first three games, we made her play left-handed. 🤣 Then we moved on to basketball, Mario Kart, and Whack-A-Minion because why the hell not? 

When we were finished (I absolutely lost, but the way) I hogged all the virtual tickets we won. My friends are so gracious, happy to split one pack of Smarties between them so I could have a new rubber duck (with a mohawk!) and this tiny little eraser.

Why is this important? It’s not.

Which is kinda my point.

I’m learning to spend every second I can with intention. Did I tell you I’ve spent my quarantine in therapy?!? Once a week, I’ve had to admit I need help. And I’m so glad, because I’m learning to squeeze as much joy out of all this shit as I can.

In 2019 that meant a trip to Europe.

In 2021 that means skeeball, a rubber duck, and a rainbow Pride eraser.

Talk about perspective. I can now LITERALLY find big joy in the smallest of places.

Thank you, 2020, for that.

Hopefully all this time of self-reflection and therapy is making me a better mom, a better wife, a better friend, and even a better writer.

I feel the difference in my bones on the writing front. I’m having SO MUCH FUN writing Specter, book 2 of my new series, that I’m refocusing my whole business around writing again.

Seems like a no-brainer in the author world, right? Wrong. The business side of self-publishing can absolutely overwhelm the joy of writing. (But that’s also a separate post—or book—all on its own.)

I write this post for myself. And I’ll be posting more stuff like this in the coming weeks. Maybe a LOT more if we get any more historical winter storms! Seriously, enough with the record-breaking, history-making shit! 🤣 Can I get an AMEN?

If anyone else finds a bit of comfort between the lines, know you are NOT ALONE. Take care of yourself. Reach out if you need to.

If you’re in Tennessee, I highly recommend The Nashville OCD & Anxiety Treatment Center. Resources are everywhere. Find help in your area, even it’s just a friend who will listen. The more you talk, the more you’ll realize it’s not just you! And you might save someone else’s life simply by being real about your own secret struggle.

Peace and love to you, wherever you may be.

⬇️ Please say hello in the comments and let me know where in the world you are! ⬇️