Seriously, the first nine days of 2020 have sucked the big one.

Because I’ve been conditioned for years to minimize (shoutout to my “it’s not that bad” peeps) I typed that sentence and the voice in my head immediately started pushing back. Fine, but it’s not like you have Mad Cow disease. You’re not losing the house and you haven’t crashed the car and your kids aren’t failing out of school and nobody’s died so shut your pie hole and get on with it. 

The voice inside my head can be a mean bitch when she wants but I’ve done my work so now I push back. Yeah, but just because somebody else’s pain comes from tragedy it doesn’t mean mine’s not valid so shut it, Dolores.

I just came up with that and now I’m rock solid sure Dolores will be my head-voice name forever.

But anyways…

The first nine days of 2020 have brought challenges, man, and I’m pretty tired of it. These ears have heard things you would not believe and the mental energy it takes to maintain composure in those moments could power a mid-sized neighborhood on Super Bowl Sunday. There was the six (or was it seven?) day headache streak that broke me, y’all. IT BROKE ME. There was nursing a kid through a godawful stomach bug which despite a ridiculous amount of hand washing and prayer still nailed me. Three days are entirely missing – poof! Gone in a blur of napping and nausea and sips of Gatorade.

That started a week ago and I’m still not back. No spicy food – shoot, even foods with itty bitty spice levels are out these days. No alcohol because heaven forbid I dull any of this horridness with moscato. And then there’s the kicker…wait for it…NO COFFEE. I mean, come on! Seriously?? Well yes, seriously, because yesterday I decided a week was long enough and if I could tolerate plain chicken and rice then a cup of coffee would work out fine except a cup of coffee landed me in the bathroom cursing the existence of every last thing on the planet.

And yes, I’m sure that’s more information about me than you needed but 2020 is REALLY sucking it. Have I mentioned my birthday is in January? Not that I expect rainbows and unicorns the entire thirty-one days but does the universe have to completely crap on my one special month a year? (And don’t come at me with Mother’s Day because you guys know better.)

So here we are. January 10th. Time to shape up, 2020. Dolores has plenty of material already.