Saying 2020 has been an “interesting” year has become a bit of a cliché. And that phrase is much like the curse: “May you live in interesting times”. One thing that has been both a blessing and a curse is working from home. Personally, I enjoy the quiet as it gives my aging brain time to wrap my head around things. But for many people, and many of my friends and family, this has played havoc with their mental health.
We are very fragile people, us human beings. Running around on this planet we sometimes have this false bravado that hides all those emotions going on inside of us. Human beings need some form of social interaction (according to a South University study). Frankly, for me, Zoom / Webex / Facetime / Skype et al just don’t cut it. My mental health needs those physical hugs. I miss my peeps. I bet you do too. I had not idea how hard it would be to watch my close family members deal with their demons and not be able to do anything about it. Sometimes just loving someone isn’t enough. If you’re in that spot, there are resources here: https://www.healthlinkbc.ca/mental-health and if it involves addiction, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention another resource: https://al-anon.org/
But that isn’t what I started off writing about. Really, I wanted to let you know about CRA’s “home office” deduction and the changes to it. If you are stuck at home, you should be taking full tax advantage of it. I’ve done a series of posts for mid-January on twitter about further details. And if you are having mental health challenges, CRA also has a list of things you can deduct.
Be good to yourself. Call your mom or someone who is “mom” like or your BFF or therapist. Here’s hope that in 2021 we live in less interesting times.
