why the four things that make you feel loved fail in a pandemic

Dec 15, 2020

There’s a new survey that lists the four things that make practically everyone feel loved.

They are:

  1. When someone shows compassion toward them in difficult times.
  2. When a child snuggles up to them.
  3. When their pets are happy to see them.
  4. When someone tells them, “I love you.”

All those things are wonderful and do work most of the time for most people — but that #2? I’m not snuggling with any child. Not mine — and not my amazing granddaughter either. ๐Ÿ™

I certainly feel the Oxytocin dumped when my puppies gaze at me the same way they look at turkey noodles (they LOVE turkey noodles!), but I’m not the only one missing hugs of compassion and love right now. You are too, right?

Still, the study is a reminder of the simple things we can all do to show appreciation of one another and make this COVID beast a little easier to carry. Let’s all try harder to spark feelings of warmth and tenderness during these totally shitty challenging times.

COVID-19 isn’t all that’s changed things around here, and a fire in the fireplace isn’t the only difference between 7 years ago and now in the ‘escape the 80’s house’….

Christmas decorations from Facebook shown 7-years-ago.
Christmas decorations today

How severe the pandemic is in the places where people I care about are locatedโ€ฆ
Daily new COVID-19 cases (7 day moving average):
Indiana-93.1 (down a tad); Jackson Co โ€“ 123.1 (up) โ€” 7.45% infected (up); Florida 45.9 (up); Nevada โ€“ 82.5 (up)

TIL (today I learned): Every Christmas season, an estimated 3.6 million Japanese families treat themselves to Kentucky Fried Chicken. It’s become a nationwide tradition! Although my Mom would love that… Chinese restaurants are the only eateries that I know of that remain open around here on Christmas Day. ๐Ÿ™„