Please, please don't leave me.

I can't sleep. This virus is messing with my head. All my friends are kinda depressed. Everyone has lost their jobs, including my boyfriend. You try to stay positive but life has changed so much. You can't go to work, you can't shop, you can't travel, you can't go to a restaurant. Suddenly, you are quarantined in your apartment with your partner, your dog and your cat. You miss your friends, you miss their babies.

But there's really nothing else you can do right now if you want to stay alive. I know I'm one of the lucky ones. I have a place to live and I don't have to live alone. I've had so many health issues my friends are afraid to see me because they might make me sick and I get it. I'm afraid of that too.

I've never missed my dad and my grandma so much. It's like the choice to see them is taken away and you realize you should have gone home more.

Every day, unless I have a zoom meeting at work, there's no reason to get out of your pjs. I think I wore the same tshirt three days in a row this week. Your doctors and therapists only do phone meetings which is fine with me. I thought I hated leaving the apartment until I couldn't.

That's not what bothers me though. My best friend "on the outside" died a few years ago. It was hard for me, harder for her. At least I got to be there on her last night and kiss her goodbye. These days we don't know. Maybe I wouldn't get the chance to be there for someone else like I was for her. So y'all stay safe and alive for me okay? Cause I can't lose anyone else.

In the meantime, all we can do is get up every day and try. My dad is such an advocate for being positive and looking on the bright side.

Suck it up buttercup. Better days are ahead.

Sullivan out.

Year of the Snake

It's not really. In the Chinese calendar it's year of the Rooster. But in that calendar, I'm a snake. Which I never could understand because they've always been my phobia. Can't look at a picture or see them on tv, I find them terrifying.

Did you know though that snakes shed their skin 2-4 times a year? Maybe I am one of theirs. I've changed so much over the past ten years, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. The pendulum has swung both ways and I ended up somewhere in the middle. My other grandmother was famous for saying "As long as they land on their feet" and I feel I have.

I got an MBA. I love my job. I'm even getting used to living through Armageddon. I miss my friends but we call and FaceTime and I have a dog at home and a guy who loves me so much he'd probably kill me if I tried to take the subway during this epidemic.

This week things started arriving. We order online a lot now. He ordered dishes, cookware, bedding. New stuff for the apartment. My first thought was OMG I'm married again. He's never leaving. I've been on my own so long I'm not used to people not leaving. It's kinda out of my comfort zone. My second thought was...I'm worth not leaving. 

I know I need to keep shedding my skin, keep improving, keep moving forward the best I can, everyday. Watch out though, some snakes bite. :)

Sullivan out.

Go away, make me want to miss you

Self isolation doesn't seem to be hitting me as hard as some others. I think that's because I already went through a year of it. And fortunately unlike a lot of people, I still have a job.

Home has always been my safe place and now I get to be here a lot. My friends are all still safe. And I've seen kindness that doesn't always come with living in Toronto.

The only person I'm "allowed" to go see is my old boss. He had to close the flower shop so I just pop in every couple of days to check up and make sure everyone is okay. Usually bring home some flowers.

My boyfriend is very cautious cause hey, if anyone is going to die from this it'll be the girl who is always in the hospital. So I wear my mask and gloves and stay away from mostly everyone. The thing he doesn't get is while I worry about others, I'm not worried about me, I'm never going to die. It would have happened by now.

I worry about him and the others who aren't used to being isolated without a social system. In this pandemic, people have lost more than their health. They have lost who they are. Without our jobs and our friends and our constantly overloaded calendars of things to do, who are we?

We are basically living a country music song, three chords and the truth. The truth is not always easy to accept. I miss my girlfriends, hell I even miss working from my office. But this won't kill me. I still have to get home to see my grandma it was supposed to have happened already. And Jay and I put off our trip to Costa Rica last year, so we gotta do that too.

I'm happy we got to Nashville before this really broke out in North America. When one of us is having a bad day Lindsay or I will just say remember when we were in Nashville? We went to the Bluebird! LEGENDARY.

For the next few months, we just need to be careful and keep trying to be grateful for what we have and have had. Maybe we're just getting by. That's good enough for now. C'mon people, let's at least try to remember what day of the week it is. And shower and change our clothes once in awhile. Or all we will go down in history is a tragic story of some guy half a world away who ate a bat and then everyone fought over toilet paper. We don't want to be remembered for that!

The other day my old boss was cleaning out the store and he gave me tons of flowers. Too many to handle really. I made little bouquets and left them outside all my neighbours doors. One of them dropped off dinner for me the other night and left it outside my door and we both made it at the same time and just talked on the phone while we ate. One of my girlfriends got, by the grace of the Gods, some disinfecting wipes and left them outside my door. This is what we want to be remembered for. Little acts of kindness. And we will never take for granted FaceTime, toilet paper or Lysol wipes again. Just remember during this crisis, there's more to life than Netflix. :)

There are tons of places that would love to have volunteers to pick up phone calls and talk to people who need help. If you're doing a grocery run think about who might need something from the store, especially those who can't get out at all. And there are lots of things we can do from home to help and stay feeling fulfilled.

And eventually, it will pass and life will go back to normal. Hopefully we learned something. Don't lose hope, send it to other people and we can all come out of this better, stronger.

Just because it burns it doesn't mean you're gonna die. You got to get up and try. - Pink 

If I'm wrong blow me one last kiss and we'll all call it even.

Sullivan out.