According to the dictionary, to be discombobulated is ‘to be thrown into a state of confusion.’ That pretty much sums up the way I’ve been feeling lately. This whole year, 2020 — I just want everything to go back to normal!

When I look in the mirror, I barely recognize myself. My face looks so much older than it did just a few months ago. Why? Is it because of all the crazy things going on in the world today? I think this covid-19 pandemic, and the lockdowns, the unrest, the unemployment, the political fighting, the heatwave, the wildfires, and smoke everywhere, is making everyone a little crazy. Maybe that’s why my face looks like I have aged twenty years in the past few months.

On top of everything else, my laptop computer is no longer functioning, and it is too old and obsolete to be repaired. I have been using that computer for the past ten or twelve years, almost every day, for writing and creating my graphic designs. I think I was able to save all the important photographs, writings, and creative designs to DVDs, so I should be able to eventually download my stuff to a new computer. But even so, I almost feel like I have lost a close friend.

My computer has gotten old, like me. I know it’s silly, but I want to cry. More than that, I want to go back to the good old days, before 2020.

Still, I’m trying to hang on to my positive attitude. You never know what’s going to happen next. Maybe, just maybe, something really GOOD will happen before this crazy year is over. Hey, it doesn’t hurt to dream!

I know, I’m silly, just like it says on my gravatar picture. But despite my silliness, even when everything seems to be going crazy in the world around me, I still believe that God is good and He is in control. And I trust Him.

How about you? Has 2020 made you feel a little discombobulated, too?

My husband and I have 5 children, 8 grandchildren, and 6 great-grandchildren between us. They live all across the USA, from the west coast of Washington state to eastern Washington state, from northern California to southern California, from western Arizona to eastern New Mexico where we live, from southwest Missouri to eastern Pennsylvania, and all the way up to northern New York state. We have been greatly concerned for all of them, for their physical and mental wellbeing, their job losses, for those that live near the western wild fires (in earthquake country!), for my husband’s granddaughter in Arizona, who just had a baby and is now struggling with postpartum depression, and for my youngest son in Pennsylvania, who lost his job two months ago, still hasn’t received anything from unemployment, has used up all his savings and is deeply depressed, fearful that he will lose his lovely home.

Truly, my husband and I would far rather have terrible things happen to us, than to any of our children and grandchildren. We are doing a lot of praying!!! And we so want to go back to church. But with my husband’s COPD and his history of 3 heart attacks, and with my autoimmune disorders, we don’t dare go to church. Not yet, not with positive covid-19 cases still spiking in our county.

To top everything off, a very aggressive Pitbull is living next door, as of about a week and a half ago. So the peace and quiet that I used to enjoy in the back yard with our two sweet rescue dogs, is no more. This dog is so scary, I’m googling ‘How to survive a Pitbull attack.’ I like our neighbor very much, and I love most dogs, but this very scary, potentially lethal beast needs to GO.

Normal. I just want to be NORMAL again. But even so, it is well with my soul!

WOW. It’s amazing how much better I feel after putting these things in writing!