<Insert the 30 Rock “What a year, huh?” “Lemon, it’s June” graphic here, because right now, generating that meme is just too much effort>
2020 is. It doesn’t rule. It DEFINITELY sucks. But here at the end of June, I’m just trying to make do with what I’ve got. I think that’s all any of us can do at this point.
There’s really no rhyme or reason to this post, at least not yet. That might change as I go, but for now, this is just going to be a nice little “life update”.
My 2020 goals have been all over the board. I’ve stagnated on my weight, I’ve not written since February, and I’ve only finished 2 books so far. On the other hand, I’ve cooked a whole bunch of stuff (that I’ve not written down, but whatever), and I’ve completed 13 games so far this year (including 5 in April). It’s apparent that priorities have changed quite a bit for just about everyone, given COVID, George Floyd, and everything else that’s going on.
So, what have I actually done this year?
Beaten 13 games
As I mentioned before, I’ve gotten 13 games completed. They are: The Outer Worlds, Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, Ori and the Blind Forest, Pokemon Shield, Control, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Halo: Reach, Halo, Outer Wilds, Halo 2, Chrono Trigger, & The Last of Us. I’ve been making liberal use of Xbox Game Pass for PC, which has unlocked a ton of other games for me to play, and I also hooked my PS4 back up in order to go through some of these AAA titles that have been collecting dust on my shelf. Horizon: Zero Dawn is next on my list.
I was really only able to do this for a few reasons… one of which being I FINALLY uninstalled League of Legends. I’ve been playing for 6 years, and it finally just got to be too much for me. (I did just recently replace it with Valorant, a fun new shooter from the same company, but I’m keeping a close eye on things to make sure I don’t repeat the same habits.)
Adopted a(nother) kitten
Please meet Beau.
Becca & I picked up Beau at the beginning of May, and he’s been a joy. Beau & Pixel are fast friends. Bearcat is still a bit apprehensive, but they’re bonding more and more every day.
Transitioned to Colemak
Back in March of last year, I blogged about my experiment with switching my keyboard layouts over to Colemak. I gave it up for a variety of reasons, but since I’ve been stuck at home for a few months now, I decided to go cold turkey with QWERTY and make the switch.
It honestly wasn’t terrible. I still had a bunch of muscle memory built up, and while I’m still nowhere near as fast as I was on QWERTY, I’m enjoying the more limited movements with typing. Plus, it’s a good conversation piece to have in my back pocket. (I’m still waiting on my Nerd Cred™ card to show up in the mail, though.)
So there’s one more thing I’ve done this year that’s pretty important. Some of you may have heard me talk about this over the last 3 months; I’ve written and deleted 4 or 5 posts about this because I didn’t want to seem like I was just bitching about it. Feel free to completely skip over this section if you want, but I think it’s finally time I put this down on “paper”.
Cut out toxic people
The first weekend of quarantine, I cut out an extremely toxic friend (and, by association, our friend group) from my life.
This was incredibly difficult for me. These 3 were the guys that I talked to pretty much daily through Google Hangouts or Discord for 7+ years. They were my gaming group that played games (like League) multiple times a week. We’ve been at/in each other’s weddings (for the two of us that are married). They were My People.
But for years, I’d been keeping one of them off to the side. He was the self-proclaimed asshole of the group. Sometimes it was funny. Sometimes it wasn’t. And in hindsight, a lot of the “funny” stuff was actually just me trying to laugh off some pretty rampant toxicity, bullying, and “guy talk”.
Things came to a head when he said something in our group, and just kept doubling down on it. It wasn’t a thing directed at me, per se, but it vividly showed me how much of a dick he was to anyone that he didn’t deem worthy of his presence. So, I cut him out. And the rest of the group sided with him (which I fully anticipated, but it didn’t make it hurt any less).
I’m not saying that I’ve always been this perfect poster child. On the contrary, I’d definitely said things within that group that I am ashamed of. But I believe that most (not all) of that mentality and behavior was due to the proximity & tacit approval that I received from this individual. Others around me have said that they’ve noticed a change in my persona since March; I jokingly chalk it up to “more self-reflection time in quarantine”, but really, I think it’s been because of more self-reflection time due to not having a friend group to talk to on the regular.
I’m not gonna lie, it’s sucked not having that group around. We celebrated victories (in game or in life), and were able to actually discuss some struggles, which is something a lot of men don’t have the opportunity to do. There were a bunch of hard days/weeks in there when I didn’t have that group to talk to anymore. But now? I’d say I’m out the other side, and ultimately better for the decision I made.
I’ve been interacting with one of the guys more frequently, and another one on a couple occasions. But I haven’t spoken to the toxic one in (quick math) nearly 15 weeks, and I’m not at all upset about that. He knows how to get in touch with me if he feels like it, but I doubt that day will ever come.
So yeah. 2020’s been real weird. I’m ready for some sort of “normal” to come back. I’m happy that I’ve been able to work remotely throughout all of this, but I’m just very ready to get out of the house and experience life again. I hope you’re all doing well too.
How are all of your 2020 goals & resolutions going? Are any of you doing smaller goals like I am? Have you had great success or serious setbacks? Hit me up on Twitter and let me know!