My Straight-Forward 2020 Recap Without Any of the Hooray Because 2020 Doesn’t Deserve It

2020 was a tough year, worthy of all the bad things written about it. I thought about doing a big celebratory HOORAY, MADE IT THROUGH 2020! kind of post, but I don’t think 2020 deserves it. While it was a pretty good year for me filled with highs and lows, it’s still 2020 and can go to hell. So here is my straight-forward recap of the past year.

THE BEST: Because of the pandemic, I got closer to my family. (More on this below.) I think I communicate better with my wife, and our love for each other has grown through the pandemic. I can’t pinpoint any one technique or rule we followed to improve communication and grow our love. We were isolated for seven months. Either your relationship improves through something like that, or it doesn’t. NOT SO HARD: Not traveling. For the past five years or so, I’ve spent 5-6 weeks on the road. The last one was to Puerto Rico, and after my work was done, my wife booked a hotel and she and my son met me in PR. After a trip to Puerto Rico, I could use a break. And yet, we were visiting my in-laws in early March when the world started to shut down. And then in June we helped my parents move out of their house and move across the country, so we did some travel, but it was a very different kind of travel experience. So not traveling on long vacations this year was not missed so much, at least for me. VERY TOUGH: My daughter not walking for her graduation. She worked really hard and deserved it. She has been staying with us since mid-March, which I think is better for us than for her. She is 22 and ready to move on with her life, which is very relatable and we absolutely support her in this. I wish her the best. Due to the pandemic, she just hasn’t been able to get to grad school physically. She’s been accepted and will be attending, but pandemic rules means she’s at home for now. I am sure she will move to grad school at some point in 2021. In the meantime, I have treasured this extra time with her.AWESOMENESS: Dropped 30 pounds. I’ve never dropped so much weight before in my life, and I now weigh what I weighed when I first came to Houston 20 years ago. I did it on Slimfast, mostly, but I’ve also started jogging and cycling.COOL: Read 35 books this year, and usually I read about 20. Some of these books, like Into the Wild, I don’t think I would have read, but when you remove commute times from your life and remove extracurriculars from your family’s world (no more soccer schedules), you have a bit of free time, which I filled with books. If you want to keep up with my reading habits, here is my Goodreads link.VERY TOUGH: Online schooling. It was the worst. I’d give it a one star review. October and November were very, very tough. It didn’t help that my workload was soaring. Online schooling is a big part of why Murder Dog will be releasing later than planned. One day I may write about it, but I think anything I said today would be more emotional and less constructive. THE HARDEST: One side of my family pretty much all got COVID-19 at the same time. It’s a multi-generational house. Everybody recovered, but that was a scary couple of weeks. Lots of hugs and tears then. BOOK AWESOMENESS: I published two books this year, Mountain Climbing with Dinosaurs and Ghost Dog. I also wrote Hunting with Dinosaurs, which should come out in early 2021. I am half-way finished with the rough draft of Murder Dog, which I project will release summer 2021. DOUBLE BOOK AWESOMENESS!: Two books on Bookbub?!? Wow. Wendigo Road and Dominion. Both exceeded way beyond my expectations. Wendigo Road was advertised on Bookbub in May 2020. It’s gone from 13 reviews to 150+ reviews. Dominion had its sale in early December, and it made number one for post-apocalyptic fiction in several countries. TWO MOMENTS OF PRIDE: My daughter receiving her college diploma. She is going to change the world, y’all. I just know it. The other is donating almost $300 to charities (based on book profits). I was blown away that you, dear reader (if I may steal from Mr. Stephen King for a moment), through your purchases and reads, allowed me to donate so much to charity. Thank you!WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT MYSELF: So, yeah – I’m definitely an introvert. It’s weird how much better I felt working from home. There was less stress overall this year for that reason alone. I just felt more comfortable. APOCALYPTIC SKILLS I MASTERED: Gardening and cooking. I am not a chef, but I am a much better cook than I was before, and I have many more recipes in my arsenal. I maintained a pandemic garden with peppers, okra, herbs, and now brocolli. Also, I learned how not to strip a bench and make ketchup water balloons. MOMENTS I WILL REMEMBER: Cycling with my son, taking excursions to state parks with my wife, and sitting on the back patio with my daughter, having late-night talks. Watching scary movies with my family at Halloween. Chilling in the backyard while my heathens be heathens. Ryder knocked the poop out of Koda is a standout moment for my dogs and their relationship.

With all the unexpected that 2020 heaved up, I can’t imagine what adventures and dog shenanigans 2021 has to offer. What I do know is I can’t wait to have them.

Hey, thank you for reading and I hope you are enjoying my posts. I’m a writer from Texas who dreams of one day writing full-time. I write the Zombie Dog books, which you can find here both digitally and paperback. I also have a Patreon account here.

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