For the Life of Me, I Cannot Remember

2019 had me stress-eating ice cream straight from the carton.  For the life of me, I can't remember why, right now.

I've been reading the articles in all the 2019 The Week magazines I've been behind on.  I do the puzzle-page as soon as the mags hit my mailbox, and then leave the newsy stuff for when I have time.  And as it's not usually super-great fabulous news, I procrastinate on reading the newsier articles.  So here I am, halfway through the fifth month of 2020, reading about 2019.

On New Year's Eve 2019, it felt like such a relief that 2019 was coming to a close and we were getting to start on 2020.  We were all saying how optimistic we were for the start of 2020.  Good riddance to 2019.

For the life of me, I cannot remember what it was about 2019 that made reaching the finish line feel like such a relief. I remember while we were going through it, it felt like a wild ride.  But for weeks now... like eight of them, I've really pondered what it was about 2019 that had us all weirded out.  It has me asking "Weren't we just precious?!" 

Nothing 2019 had for us holds a candle to what hell broke loose in 2020.

I'll tell you what, though.  I can't be letting myself stress-eat here in 2020 like I did at the end of 2019.  I was rolling on pretty well on diet, exercise, and weight-loss in the first two and a half months of this year.  And then Sparkling Isolation (now known as Pandemic Purgatory) happened.  And I remembered I love Nutella.  For the early weeks of This Whole Thing, I put it on my "essential grocery" list, along with milk, eggs, cheese, apples, vegetables, and coffee beans.  Those little retail-store-size jars were coming home, and I'd eat them like pudding, one spoonful at a time. 

So I found on Amazon that they have 6 pound tubs of Nutella, for a far more reasonable price-per-ounce.  And it was even more reasonable if a kid were to buy two of those tubs.  The description said for Food Service, but I think they just didn't have time to change the description to "For Food Service or Pandemic Purgatory."  So I clicked "buy it now!" and celebrated with a big spoon of Nutella as soon as it got here!

You know, a two-tablespoon serving of Nutella packs a 200-calorie punch.  You can eat a whole bowl of ice cream for 200 calories! 

Still love the stuff, though.

I've put away a lot of Nutella in the last two months.  Nutella is way more intense than ice cream, but 2020 has been so, so much more intense than 2019 was.  But I've got to stop it with self-medicating with the Nutella.  I don't want to have to buy bigger Pandemic Purgatory Pants. 

For the life of me, I cannot remember what made us think 2019 was so bad, now that we're living in the surreal world of 2020.  I just hope to All That Is Good and Holy that when we (finally) get to the end of 2020, and get sort of kind of into 2021, that no fresh hell breaks loose to make us wonder what we thought was so bad about 2020.  Because I'm not sure any of our tickers could take it!