It’s now been officially over one year since I’ve attended a concert. It’s also been over one full year since I’ve attended any event that I needed a ticket for. I believe that this is the first time that I’ve been able to say that in twenty years. For someone that attends as many concerts as I (normally) do and as someone that grew to rely on concerts for various reasons, you would think that I would be very upset about this. But, I’m really not.

There is no doubt that I think it would be great to be able to see some of my favorite bands in person again. It would be great to see the friends that I see at shows. It would be great to be able to get the emotional release that I get from some of those shows. But, I also know that it’s for the best that none of that has been possible for the past year.

I had planned to attend a concert in Philadelphia in March of last year. A day before the band canceled the show, I canceled my hotel reservation. COVID-19 had started to spread in that area and I decided to err on the side of caution. Some people thought that I was being overly cautious, but I have no regrets. We didn’t know what we were dealing with then, and I didn’t want to take the chance.

Here we are a year later and my (in person) socializing has been barely existent for almost twelve full months. And, I’ve had no major depressive episodes during that year. How did I avoid depression? How did the loneliness and isolation not get to me? I think the lack of rejection played a big part in it. I couldn’t be turned down. I couldn’t have plans backfire. None of that was possible over the past year.

To clarify something from the last paragraph, I never truly felt lonely over the past year. In fact, I rarely feel lonely. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. But, it’s something that may be explored in a future entry. In fact, I’m already thinking about it more than anything else in this post. Why don’t I get lonely? See… I’m thinking about it too much already. Okay… moving on…

I am fully aware that a lot of what I’ve written about in the past year has been somewhat repetitious, but I haven’t had much to write about due to a lack of new experiences inspiring me.

A few paragraphs ago, I said that I’ve had no major depressive episodes recently and I haven’t. But, I am dealing with an incredible malaise right now. My motivation is shot. I’m lacking the energy to do much of anything, even with the little bit of anything that I’m doing. I’ve actually been going to sleep earlier recently. I thought that maybe that would help, but it hasn’t. Ironically, at the time that I’m writing this portion of this entry, I’m going on less sleep than I’ve had in days and I’m more full of energy than I’ve been for a few days.

For various reasons, this post has taken a few days to write. The malaise is an issue and so is time restraints. I’ve actually been busy. Yes, as much as I don’t want to do much, I always manage to make sure that I get my legitimate obligations done. I think that’s why I literally plan out so much of days sometimes. I don’t do stuff if I don’t have to.

It’s very possible that absolutely every single thing that I’ve mentioned in this entry is tied together. It’s been one full year of the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s been one full year of not being able to do the things that I used to do, or in my case, the option of doing them. The majority of my days have almost literally been nothing but, waking up, going to work, going back to the house. For a little while, I was working from my house, and while that’s convenient, it’s also not. That’s another topic that I may explore in the near future.

One of these days, I may need to go back and look at all of the topics that I’ve said that I may need to explore and actually write about them. I also may need to go back and re-read entries because I do feel that I’m repeating too much, especially over the past year. For example, if I had read last month’s entry before starting this one, I would have realized that I’m basically ending it the same way, but talking about exploring topics that I’ve brought up. And of course, I did mention something about Easter Eggs in that post. But, that’s all that I’ll say about that (for now).

There’s potential for me to be able to have a different story in my next entry. There’s things in the works that could possibly alleviate some of my personal concerns. It would be nice if those were able to come to fruition. I don’t feel like I have much to say right now. But, maybe not having much to talk about is a good thing. It’s really just a matter of perspective.