Last week was a doozy. The global Covid-19 pandemic spread like wildfire into the United States, affecting everyone on the planet in one way or another. I became a homeschooling mom to my children, I had two friends pass away from cancer on the same night, our businesses were hit hard (along with everyone else), we had our first 5.7 earthquake in Utah since 1997, and my schedule became more clear that it has been since I was five years old.

It is times like these, of which I have never experienced, that you begin to look at everything in your life differently. Like everyone else, I was going along in my pre-covid life, never realizing that everything I knew was about to change. I was mothering seven chidden, six girls and one adopted little boy, grand-mothering three, engaged in the our commercial building maintenance companies, actively participating in community work, and recently graduating with my Bachelors degree while loosing my city council race in the last quarter or 2019.

I am driven and I have never wanted to waste the time I have been given. I typically view life with a perspective of hope, faith, and determination. I am quite often the one that others come to in the midst of challenge, and I find great satisfaction in listening and brainstorming with them for find solutions. I do not have all of the answers, of course, nobody does. But, I do care enough to try, and I love to help whenever I can.

ENTER CORONA. I find it hard to comprehend that Covid-19 has shut down life as we know it, but it has. Many businesses cannot go about their work, families are quarantined, people are losing jobs, the economy has tanked, and the NBA, Broadway and sporting events have all been canceled. Nothing is the same, and it never will be. I am not saying that people can’t overcome this catastrophe, because I believe people are resilient, but I do believe none of us will ever forget it, and that it will influence the way we function in our world from now on.

With all of these thoughts slamming around in my head, and with little ability to communicate with the people I am used to spending time with, I had to find a place to dump all of it. I used to write a personal blog named Pink Moss. I started it in 2007, which was right at the beginning when blogs started on the internet. I wrote religiously for five or six years, sharing pictures and stories of my life as a mom raising my kids. Eventually, my sister talked me into leaving Pink Moss so we could start a joint blog. As we began working together, I gradually lost touch of my writing voice. Finally, I shifted my focus to building my N.G.O and enrolled in school to finish my degree. I realize now, through the recent shocking turn of events, that it is my time to begin writing again.

Part of me is excited, and another part of me is scared. I am naturally a storyteller, and I feel comfortable writing this way, but over the past three years, I have been learning to research. Academic research and writing is completely different, and it is a skill that I needed to begin learning. I may return to school at some point and continue this education, but timing is everything – and it isn’t quite my time. Instead, I am going to challenge myself in this way, and trust that what I write will be beneficial to someone — at least myself.