796th Friday Blog Roundup

Things just felt like a lot this week. I hit a pandemic wall. I had a doctor’s appointment in March rescheduled for early June. I called the office to see if my appointment was still on, feeling fairly certain that it would be canceled. But the woman who answered reassured me that the appointment was happening. I felt uncomfortable and made a gut decision to cancel the appointment for the time being even though they weren’t taking new appointments at this time.

When I went to tell Josh, he absentmindedly told me he would have kept the appointment. That the doctor’s office has protocols and it was probably safe. Which sent me into a half hour of sobbing because I couldn’t rebook the appointment. And it was such a small thing—just an annual visit. They will either start taking appointments soon or they won’t. It’s out of my hands.

Maybe that is it—I hit a wall because humans have a limit to how much they can be reminded that the world has always been out of our control.

I cried because I can’t seem to keep basil plants alive. I cried because I don’t know when I’m going to get to see my siblings again. And I cried because it is so hard out there. And then I went back to work and pretended everything was normal.

I couldn’t cry over the front page of the weekend New York Times showing a thousand people who died. I can only cry over the small things because if I let myself cry over the big things, it would be a deluge.

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Stop procrastinating. Go make your backups. Don’t have regrets.

Seriously. Stop what you’re doing for a moment. It will take you fifteen minutes, tops. But you will have peace of mind for days and days. It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments in order to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week. In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “No Kidding 2020 Project: Day 15 – Admit” (No Kidding in NZ)

Okay, now my choices this week.

It’s Inconceivable has a post about COVID-19 through the lens of childless-not-by-choice. She makes so many great points about the language around COVID-19 (especially the “we’re all in this together” messaging). She writes, “There’s been much talk of loneliness and mental health for older people during lockdown – but no chat of the loneliness of those single, CNBC who have no family, male or female or those of us who are partnered, but don’t have children in this child-centric world. Why are these people forgotten, even when we aren’t in the throes of a global pandemic?” Read her whole bullet point list.

My Path to Mommyhood has a heartbreaking conversation with a student who asks if she will adopt her if she goes into a foster-to-adopt situation. It is an impossibly difficult conversation that guts her (and, in all honesty, made me cry reading it, too), leaving her “feeling so sad about a world where kids like her get stuck with shitty family situations, and people like us don’t get to be parents.”

Lastly, Slaying, Blogging, Whatever… turned 50 this week. It’s a huge milestone, and it’s falling during the pandemic. So if you could take two minutes out of your day and go pile on the birthday wishes, I would really appreciate it. Because 50 deserves a big celebration, even if it has to be partially online. (And a little late.)

The roundup to the Roundup: Little things broke me this week. Your weekly backup nudge. And lots of great posts to read. So what did you find this week? Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between May 22 – 29) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week? Read the original open thread post here.