2020 in Orlando

I was looking at Christmas cards on Shutterfly last week and my favorite design was a flat card that simply read:  

“Well, that happened.”  

I didn’t wind up ordering anything because even with the “free” ten cards deal I had, it was too expensive, but I can’t think of a better way to sum up 2020. 

I’m in a really weird place mentally. This time last year, my goal for 2020 was get through the wedding and then decide what to do with the rest of the year. I had such a hard time thinking past March 11th, the day we would get home. I don’t know if all brides feel this way, but there was a long time where nothing past March existed. In hindsight, I was kind of right. 

I’ve talked before about how theme park and hospitality workers are drowning. We still are. Nothing has changed. If anything, it’s gotten worse. More and more people are losing their jobs, the case numbers keep climbing, and the governor of this misbegotten state cares more about interfering in other state’s elections, than he does the death count. I have friends who have done everything right through this whole thing, and still tested positive. We were going out before, but now our last visit to a theme park was in early November. We pretty much try to only go to work and go straight home as much as possible since the cases started skyrocketing. I never thought I’d miss going to a store so much. 

It’s worth mentioning that I also know people who have done everything wrong since the beginning of the pandemic and were still going to each other’s houses every single day, as far as I know, they’re fine. We stopped being friends months ago, because we wouldn’t break quarantine to hang out with them. 

This hurts more than I care to let on. I thought I finally found a Florida family, a theme park family, and I am shocked at how wrong I was.  

I could write pages and pages about how bad things are here. How scared I am every time my high-risk husband leaves the house. I could tell you that I’ve now survived two rounds of layoffs and my company has gone from over three hundred employees to around fifty. I could tell you that I keep praying for another shutdown even though I’m fairly certain it would be the final nail in the coffin for this job. I could tell you about more awful guest interactions I’ve had in the last few months and how it takes the bare minimum of someone being nice to make me feel warm and fuzzy. I could talk about how I recently cried on the phone with the supervisor that cost me a promotion and being named “___________ of the year” last year, because I was so stressed and frustrated. 

In my defense, I asked for a meeting and got a phone call ten minutes later. I had this whole plan of getting notes and a list of things to talk about together. 

I have to remind myself that despite Jay losing five family members, me taking a massive pay cut, and our growing stress levels, that we’re the lucky ones. We still have jobs, food on the table, and a roof over our heads. 

Think about that. I made over $47,000 last year. This year I will be surprised if I make $29,000, and we’re the lucky ones. 

Yeah, but Chelsea you were furloughed! 

I was only furloughed for six weeks. I’m good at what I do. I am not that good. Once upon a time, $30 was a slow day. Now it’s a good day. 

Even still, at the end of the day, I have a job. I have watched too many good people lose their jobs this year.  

I see a lot of people are saying this is almost over, that things are almost back to normal. Yes, there is hope. The vaccine is here and as soon as it’s available to us, Jay and I will be first in line to get it. However, theme park and hospitality don’t really qualify as essential and I think it’ll be at least six months before we see it, and longer still before Orlando returns to “normal”. I think it’ll be years before the hospitality industry is remotely what it was on March 11th, the day we returned home and the day before the shutdown was announced. I would love to be wrong on both of these points, but I don’t think I am. 

I have spent more than enough time this year trying to convince people how bad things are here, how hard this has been on theme park workers. People have this misconception Orlando is run entirely by kids working for fun money,rather than people who are just trying to feed their families and do something they believe in. You don’t pick up and move to another state to work somewhere for fun. You do it because it’s what you want to do with your life. If I haven’t convinced you by now, I never will.  

Instead, I’m going to try to talk about some of the good things that have happened for us this year. I’ve struggled to write about the bad. I’m sure with how long some of these articles run, writing them probably looks easy, but you haven’t seen the hours I’ve spent struggling with a blank Word document taunting me. I have tried to give a voice to the struggles of hospitality workers right now. Maybe it’s arrogant of me to think that way, and there are times I wonder what I’m doing or if I’m reaching anyone, but I have the ability to speak where others do not, and I think it would be wrong not to try. 

Now I am going to push myself to try to talk about the not bad things that have happened this year for my family. Good things felt like too strong a word, so I’m going with not bad things. I’m not at all about to pretend the good outweighs the bad, but ten years from now I want to be able to point at the brighter moments. 

• A couple of days before Thanksgiving, we took our Siberian Husky Fiona in for a third surgery to remove a cancerous mass in hopes of removing the cancer. Sadly, the tumor is too deep and all we can do now is give her the best life we can for as long as we can. This is on the not bad list for one specific reason: Fiona and I spent a lot of time together after the surgery. She does really badly in a cone, and if I was watching her all the time to make sure she didn’t scratch, I could take it off. For the four years I have lived with this dog, she has always felt like Jay’s dog. Well, I’m happy to report she finally likes me, and for the first time ever, she feels like our dog. We don’t know how much longer we’ll have with her. It will greatly depend on luck and how fast the tumor grows, but we’re hoping to give her as much love as we can for as long as we can. 
• I’ve written a lot this year. I feel like I’ve written more this year than previous years, but haven’t actually looked at my publication numbers to verify that. I also feel like I’ve pushed myself a lot more this year. Life After Disney was the single hardest thing I’ve ever written. I hope it helped people. I didn’t realize while I was writing it, but it actually helped me. I’d been carrying that secret for so long, putting it out into the word lifted a weight I didn’t know was there. It’s also freed me up to speak a little more openly about my past. I’m also going to keep writing. I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to keep my content schedule with Twenty Something in Orlando the way I’d like. Park visits are going to be fewer and farther between for a while still, but I’m going to try to branch out into other things to talk about. I’m also writing a book after putting it off for the last two years! I’m currently about eight chapters in. 
• One of my friends has gotten really into baking and she’s so good at it. I’m so proud of her. I’m also extremely excited to be one of her guinea pigs. 
• Cara and Chris, who took our engagement photos and watched our pets while we were on the cruise, got engaged! 
• I’ve gotten back into bullet journaling. My planner got wrecked by a leaky water bottle, but since my life has become much less date based of late, I decided the flexibility of a bullet journal might suit me better again. 
• Two of my friends were left high and dry by their roommate who told them he was going to renew with them, and then changed his mind after they told the landlord they would be staying. It came to my attention another friend needed a place to live and I introduced them. Everyone hit it off and it seems to be going swimmingly. 
• I have spent a lot of this year being strangely grateful that Nana died last year. If we had to lose her, I’m glad it was before all this started. She would have been scared to death and so lonely. I still miss her every day, and every time I think I’ve dealt with the grief I’m proven wrong, but I’m so relieved she didn’t have to deal with any of this.

2020 may almost be over, and I hate to point this out, but, 2021 isn’t going to change anything. We’ve got months and months ahead of us before we reach the end of the tunnel. Nothing magically changes on New Year’s Day. 

I have never been great at goals. I usually set them at the beginning of the year and then forget about them. Like I said, my only goal for 2020 was get through the wedding and then I’d figure it out from there. The way it’s worked out, my only other real goal this year is still having a job on January 1st. Well, I can say I’ve accomplished that, but my last day will be January 31st. I found this out the day after I wrote this article, and I had to do some editing. Turns out we didn’t need another shutdown to kill my company. I’ve got some ideas on what’s next, but no plans yet.

I’m trying something new for 2021 and setting twelve-week goals, and therefore try to stop stressing myself out with looking too far ahead. I’ve got a couple of year goals too, but I’m going to base the twelve-week goals around them. I only have two for the first twelve-weeks: finish writing and self-publish my book, and refinance the house. I figure sharing them is either going to help keep me accountable, or something out of my control will happen that will prevent me from accomplishing them. 

“Hope for the best, plan for the worst”, has been my approach to life since I started college. Well, it’s gotten me this far. 

Check on your friends. Stay home if you can. If you’ve got a little money left over after Christmas, throw it towards Magic for Magic Makers, and if you can spare some good vibes for the world’s best husky, we’d appreciate it. Above all else, if faced with the choice of saying nothing or saying something nice, say something nice. The world’s a dark place right now, and telling someone you like their shoes might make their whole day. 

Hey, everything’s 2020 with hindsight, right?