Wow, it's been forever since I've written a blog (⌒ヮ⌒;) This feels weird lol I guess I'll start with what's been going on in my life the past few years and why I've been gone and not writing…

My father passed away at the end of 2019, so a lot of the end of that year and the beginning of 2020 I spent taking care of my mom while she was mourning and didn't want to eat or do anything, and dealing with end-of-life legal stuff (´･_･`) I was still trying to write at this point but it was difficult with everything.

And then of course in 2020 the pandemic and all that craziness started. And it wasn't just the lockdowns and worry about getting sick for me. I don't usually talk about this much on here because it makes me uncomfortable to think about getting attention because of it, and because I like being here to make people happy not worry about my problems, but I have a lot of health issues. The worst thing I deal with is an illness called Mast Cell Activation Syndrome or MCAS (pronounced M-cas), which causes severe and life threatening allergic reactions to a ton of different things (chemicals, foods, hormones, pollen, heat/cold, stress, pain, infection, barometric pressure changes, odors or smells in the air, and sunlight, just to name a few of the most common triggers) (•~•)  There are only very specific brands or items I can use without having a reaction because of it, so all the shortages and people hoarding things like food, water, and toilet paper made my life miserable and terrifying (＞︵＜) Especially with the water. I react to even the slightest amount of chemicals in it (most bottled drinking water in the US still have chemicals like chlorine and flouride in them), so at that time there was only one brand of distilled water I knew I could use for drinking and cooking. Thankfully my mom discovered something called the zerowater pitcher (which, when new, its filters basically filter everything out). I'm very lucky that worked out but I spent the rest of the year dealing with a lot of reactions from all the stress, all the chemicals suddenly being used to disinfect everything, and constantly having to try new foods and brands since there was so little available.   

And then in December of 2020 my mom and I got covid. I'm not going to write out the whole story because it's upsetting me just thinking about it, and getting emotional is one of my triggers for the MCAS, but it was bad and we were both extremely lucky to survive. It ended up taking months for us to recover enough to go back to normal life, and almost a year to get past the worst of our long covid symptoms.

During that recovery time, where my mom worked went out of business so she lost her job. But thankfully (again), right when we needed it, all the paperwork from my father's passing finally went through and she started receiving survivor benefits. It is only enough to cover our rent and most basic bills but that was more than most people had at the time so we were very grateful. Since then she's been able to start doing some private tutoring and is most of the time making enough for food and gas and extra things we might need. It's not a lot, and not consistent work, so things are still tight and sometimes change from week to week, but it's better than nothing. 

Just when we were finally feeling over the long covid (in December of 2021), we got omicron (>ლ)(•~•) It wasn't as bad as having covid the first time, but it still (worst sore throat of my life!) and triggered my MCAS again. So then I had to deal with my body being hyped up and reacting to everything. 

I think it was all too much for my system because 2022 has been pretty bad for me health wise (•~•) I've had tons of reactions and lots of other secondary health problems from my body being rundown. 

I always try to stay positive and happy and push through things but that's been a lot harder to do lately. I'm trying, but it's a struggle (´･_･`;)

I've also been trying to get back into writing but that's been hard too. I'm not used to writing regularly anymore, and when everything else feels bad it's hard to make yourself do something that doesn't exactly feel comfortable (⌒ヮ⌒;) I'm trying to work through it but it's taking some time. 

I think that's about it (⌒ヮ⌒) for now at least (jeez this turned out to be long! Sorry!)

How have you been?

Miso (◍•ᴗ•◍)-❤