The year 2020 has ended and turned out to be one of the worst years of my life. However, I will also think of it of my most blessed years. Our lockdown in Florida began right after I returned from Key West and a great wedding anniversary with my wife of over twenty years. With the lockdown came the end to such joyful excursions, trips to restaurants, museums, and other attractions here in the Tampa Bay area. We were basically confined to our two bedroom condo and the Schooner Cove property where we lived. Donna and I went to the grocery store together with me staying in the car and she cooked all our meals. We did a lot of reading and tv watching. Trump and his last year in office became a focal point for our readings and discussions.
During the year the wife became excited about the creation of generational wealth and we went on a quest to look for an investment property. This major distraction led us to trips to local cities looking at houses. We spent time looking at our finances and working with mortgage companies for pre approval. Keep in mind that real estate was never any thing that I was interested in but it was a project my wife really liked, and it also kept us involved in a joint project. Our first venture to purchase a condo and rent it as an investment got all the way to the end and then the financing fell apart. It was a great disappointment. We then looking at single family homes outside of Tampa and that proved fruitless for us also. By the end of the year Donna got me to look at a townhouse that we had watched being built over the year at a location close to where we lived. While it was twice what we where paying for the condo, we put an offer in on it and got financing approved and moved in Feb 2021. Donna rented out the condo so she still was involved with having real estate.
The year was awful for so many people who had the corona virus and the thousands of deaths. People where losing their jobs, housing, and lives. Children were out of school and unable to be in contact with friends and family. Airline travel and even hotel stays were off the table. Leaving with my wife who is a self proclaimed germaphobic became even more challenging. Staying in close quarters twenty four seven brought about stress and even the one person who is the love of your life and best friend can get on your nerves. As a seventy year old man with concrete values and ways of doing things now having a person critiqing everything you do from your driving to loading the diss washer can be frustrating.
For the entire year our daughter was having legal issues from being encarcerated to probation. Her children had been separated and scattered between her son's father, her estranged sister , and child protective services. Our middle granddaughter was left to her own accord and became engulfed by the streets. In October she became a statistic and was murdered. We were very close and I had tried all my life to be a positive force in her life and a good male figure, but her environment and family pushed her in the wrong direction and the system and I failed her.
With all this came the rise of racism in this country. The murder of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor lead to a movement that swept the country and the world. The Karens came out of the woodwork as well as hate groups. It was very difficult to watch our country expose what I already knew as well as almost all black people. I have lived through alot including the assassination of a President and the changes that came after for civil rights in the sixties. The assassination of a great civil rights leaders including Martin Luther King Jr. and the decline in the movement afterwards. However, now that we have had a black president (something I thought I would not see in my lifetime) we have put someone in power to undo all that kumbaya nonsense. White are in power and will always be, or we will burn this country down.
But during all of this I have been TRUELY blessed. I nor anyone in my family caught the virus or succumb to it. My 93 year old mother, who is in a nursing home and was isolated from everyone for months has survived and lived to take the vaccine. During the lockdown we did not suffer any financial hardship which would have a lasting impact on our lives. In actuality were were able to save some funds due to the lockdown and have actually increased our net worth. No loss of food for meals, medicine, housing, insurance, or savings being wiped out. We were able to go to a park even during the lockdown and walk almost everyday and enjoy the weather here in Tampa. No floods, tornados, fires, and even the hurricanes did not materialize here.
I'm still here, I'm still alive, and blessed because the favor of God is on me. I do not look for or worry about the big or small things that may happen, but realize all the big things that I am blessed with. The ability to pay my bills, see the sunrise and sunset, watch the rain fall, walk in the park, and to have someone who loves me that I can share each day with. I have tried to look at my life this year from the positive viewpoint, not paranoid , not from a racist perspective (yes, black people can be racist too), and not with the thought that everyone is conspiring against me. I love the comic strip Pickles in the newspaper. It is about a husband and wife (Earl & Pearl) who are grandparents and live together. They are visited sometimes by their grown daughter and their grandson Nelson, who is quit inquisitive. They remind me so much of my day to day world that it makes me smile and laugh most the time at some of the things they do and say to each other.
I am looking forward to 2021 and to returning to what many call normal life. I can only pray that things in our collective country get better. It has a long way to go. I'm only human so I know that there is an end in sight for me, but I hope to be blessed for the remainder of what is left.
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