March 29, 2021

How Quickly Things Change

Things change—quickly! Time doesn’t gift us the pleasure of enjoying something before it dissipates. Think about all those one-hit wonders in the music industry. Poof, and they’re gone! The same thing happens in sports, politics, and other prominent areas of our lives.

When I started writing The Other Boy in March of 2019 things looked very different than they did when I published it in March of 2021. As an aside, I love that the book was fully finished in the same month it was started. I’m looking for meaning in that. I know it’s in there somewhere. So many things changed between 2019 and 2021.

I’ll get to the obvious things in a moment, but I’ll start with the celebrities we lost. This list includes, in 2019, Bart Starr, Doris Day, Tim Conway, the highly underrated Robert Forster, Luke Perry, and Eddie Money; and in 2020, Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna, Chadwick Boseman, Regis Philbin, Phil Niekro, Charley Pride, Alex Trebek, Sean Connery, Eddie Van Halen, Yuko Takeuchi, Gale Sayers, Lou Brock, Grant Imahara, and many more.

2019

Food delivery grew over 100%.

Boeing jets were falling out of the sky, lowering my desire to fly even further.

Donald Trump was president.

By the end of 2019, in December, COVID-19 was discovered in Wuhan, China. It spread like wildfire and nobody really paid that much attention, probably because the SARS-COV outbreak was nothing like the COVID-19 outbreak.

2020

By January of 2020, COVID-19 had escaped China and was being spread to the rest of the humans via humans. By March, Mother Earth had a full-fledged global pandemic on her hands. I didn’t write for three months after the outbreak because I, like most people in the world, was stunned. It was quite eerie!

Then, toilet paper instantly disappeared from stores. There was plenty of food, but no toilet paper. It didn’t add up—at all! Then came the masks. We went from seeing the face of stranger’s to seeing only their eyes. I actually liked it, but I hated my own breathe, and now I feel like I owe my wife an apology because of that.

The killing of people who didn’t deserve to be killed continued.

California fires continued to flex their might throughout the Western United States.

Sports got REALLY weird with no fans in the seats.

The COVID-19 death toll surpassed two-million people, as scientists were nearing the completion of a handful of vaccines.

2021

In 2021, Joe Biden became president.

The rise in COVID-19 vaccine administrations marked a noticeable decline in the number of COVID-19 cases.

My son Xavian changed a lot between 2019 and 2021. That which consisted mostly of behavioral issues and emotional, albeit violent meltdowns two years prior had morphed into something different. It had become intense OCD, even fewer trips into public than before, major pre-teen attitude, and continued violent meltdowns and self-harm.

Xavian wasn’t the only one who changed. I felt a change in myself as well. I felt a humility and a gratitude that I had never felt before. Where meltdowns and destruction used to irritate or anger me, they now saddened me. Sadness is a much more natural emotion for me. I don’t mind it. It helps my creativity and allows me to access parts of myself where treasures lie in wait. Anger just makes me irritable. It’s an emotion I don’t care for.

So, now I’m a published author, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. Frankly, I’m usually not sure how I feel about anything. One thing is certain, it feels good to finish a project, especially one as large and drawn-out as a book.