I’m sure there are going to be plenty of these types of posts the internet over as we move through March and April. I fully recognize how lucky I am now in March of 2021. No one in my family has gotten sick. No one has died. There hasn’t been any loss of housing or anything like that.
But I’d be lying if I said there hasn’t been a strong sense of loss this past year.
In March of 2020, I had two jobs. I’d just gone full time at SeaWorld and was still part time (seasonal) with Universal. I’d just started helping a friend of mine who’d gotten a job as a Trivia Night host and we were going to be the next biggest Trivia Night team in Orlando! The holiday shows were finally put away at SeaWorld and at Universal we were in the midst of Mardi Gras, but daily operations had returned as well. It was still cold out and all of us were enjoying those last few weeks of sub-90° weather. There’d been murmuring of Coronavirus but seemingly overnight, it was all anyone talked about. Which, to be fair, when you work at a theme park with guests from the world over, and there’s hints of a world-wide pandemic spreading? The fear was legitimate.
All of a sudden, we couldn’t buy hand sanitizer. Not just in bulk like we’d normally do, but couldn’t buy a single bottle. With my costuming job, we were looking at costumes that people were sharing and wondering what on earth we could do to in order to be as safe as possible. At the guest facing job, walking into work knowing that I’d be closely interacting with people and using their phones all day, there wasn’t a moment where I didn’t imagine little germs crawling all over me.
Coworkers and I joked, thinking we’d be gone a few weeks and then back at full force, with parades and laundry and meet and greets. The whole gamut. Our last morning at work, one of the dancers at Universal and I were laughing that when we came back it’d be hot and we’d be slightly out of shape so that first parade back would be a doozy. I put my ID in my glove box, so I wasn’t trying to frantically find it when I was next scheduled, and I headed home for a few weeks of vacation. When I clocked out of my last shift at SeaWorld, there was a bit of an ominous feeling when the time clock didn’t pop up to remind me of my next shift. And yet, never in a million years did I imagine what would come next.
Those first few days, it was like a mini-vacation. I’d been working close to 80 hours a week for over six months and I’ll admit, I was pretty damn tired and welcomed the time at home. I had an impromptu drawing class with my oldest niece and nephew. I cooked, a lot. Like everyone else, I cultivated a sourdough starter, I made the whipped coffee, I scrolled endlessly through TikTok. I tried everything to stave off the creeping anxiety and feeling of dread.
A group chat of our team was started by our boss, giving us direction on how to file for unemployment. Seemed so innocuous. People did this everyday, right? Oh they might have, but now there were hundreds of thousands applying on a system that was so fucked up beyond belief that it took literal weeks to put in an application. Then to be told I wasn’t eligible and having to appeal that. All while it was becoming more apparent that this furlough wouldn’t be a few weeks as we’d initially thought. When you don’t make much money to begin with, any time off becomes a stress like you can’t imagine. Combined with the stress of being someone with an autoimmune disease and therefore immunocompromised in the middle of a pandemic? That “yay, three week vacation!” was quickly becoming a full on nightmare.
Thankfully, I was eventually found eligible for unemployment. Which, frankly, was a godsend. We would not have survived had we not been. My mom was able to send money so we could pay rent that month. The Costco pack of peanut butter was fully utilized as every penny became more and more crucial. Thankfully, a few months later, I was able to start a job working with Grace at her company. But the sudden end to any career advancement in the field I’d just recently earned a degree in caused more than one daily existential crisis. I’ve now been at this job for almost a year and still wonder if I’ll continue to just move from one entry level low paying job to another.
It’s a year later, and starting Monday, I’m eligible to receive the vaccine here in Orange County. I know that we’ve been incredibly lucky. The rational part of my brain recognizes that. However, there is no denying that, like many others, this year has been one of incredible upheaval and disruption. As with most things of that sort, it is also where renewal and invention lives. Hence this site and our other endeavors such as our podcast and YouTube channel. Losing a job meant we damn near lost everything and it wasn’t a good place to be. Will we become famous bloggers? Who knows? Is it possible that the internet can become the source of just a bit of security? We will work to make that the reality.
Thanks for coming along for the ride! May we all be vaccinated and return to a world not like it was before, but even better.
You can find our Podcast, Two Wives & Their Dog on Spotify, or wherever you stream podcasts, and be sure to check out our new YouTube channel, also Two Wives & Their Dog!
Bredson Family 