{"id":31059,"date":"2021-01-25T13:48:23","date_gmt":"2021-01-25T18:48:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/?p=31059"},"modified":"2021-01-30T22:46:37","modified_gmt":"2021-01-31T03:46:37","slug":"2021-getting-the-groove-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/tartan-news\/2021\/01\/25\/2021-getting-the-groove-back\/","title":{"rendered":"2021: Getting The Groove Back"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

2020 felt like tripping over the edge of a cliff, tumbling down the side of it while trying to grab every branch, stone or ledge on the way down, smacking into a ravine and getting stuck in the mud all at once. 

It hit hard and looking back at it, no one had any idea what they were in for. At the beginning of 2020, I had a larger friend group than I’d ever had, I was part of a Dungeons and Dragons<\/a> campaign, and I had a pretty stable rhythm going in terms of life. Things were looking up and finally I felt like I was close to where I wanted to be. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Credit: Jeri Hensley<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

COVID crept in like a thief in the night and at first, we weren’t too worried. I went on a trip to Columbus with friends, and spent the day at a large outdoor mall right around Spring Break week. We got told we had extra time off school. Cool, a longer break! If only we’d known then what we know now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’d started to make plans at the beginning of the year. I wanted to go to Disney to Star Wars Land <\/a>and make a droid. I wanted to do a giant DnD session at my house and make a bunch of food. I wanted to go to the amusement park with friends or do Halloween haunts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suddenly the lockdowns came, the masks were on and all those plans were no more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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(unsplash\/Mika Baumeister)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I wasn’t alone, everyone was experiencing the same thing. Our lives were upended in a matter of months by a virus. 2020 was by all accounts, a disaster but not every part of it was entirely bad. Before things got too bad, I did something I had always wanted to do, but never was brave enough. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I got my first tattoo. It’s a memorial tattoo to my Papa who passed in 2017. I grew up afraid of needles, so I never thought I’d actually get one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

2020 was weird and confusing and often depressing and lonely, but keeping friends close virtually was the key to making it through. I’m not writing this just to tell you what I did, or how I made it through though. I want to focus on 2021. How do we approach a new year after being through one that was so bad?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carefully, I think, and with low or no expectations. 2021 holds a lot of promise, and it’s still so new that there’s the spark of hope luring you in to cling to. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

2021 feels like the rope tossed out to you to help you crawl out of the mud pit. I for one will be crawling slowly. There’s time to get the groove back and have a somewhat normal year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep your friends close, find new ways to do things you used to do before the pandemic in a safe way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While things may not be like they once were for a while, that doesn’t mean it can’t still be a good year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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(unsplash\/content pixie)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Jeri Hensley
<\/strong>Creative Director<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2020 felt like tripping over the edge of a cliff, tumbling down the side of it while trying to grab every branch, stone or ledge on the way down, smacking into a ravine and getting stuck in the mud all at once.  It hit hard and looking back at it, no one had any idea […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10416,"featured_media":31132,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3613,2616,3524,2109,3],"tags":[3616,4695,4079,2016,4741,4343],"class_list":["post-31059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-featured","category-my-voice-2","category-opinion","category-tartan-news","tag-3616","tag-4695","tag-covid-19","tag-jeri-hensley","tag-positive","tag-social-distancing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-84X","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/2021-Getting-the-Groove-Back.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10416"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31059"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31059\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31136,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31059\/revisions\/31136"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}