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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
Okay, technically this picture isn't from this week. This was from a worksheet I completed when I was ~6. I wasn't really cocky or a showboat when I was younger. I was the best backstroker in the north east and the second best butterflyer in the country, but I never thought I was actually good until after I quit. I don't really know where that confidence went, that confidence I had when I wrote this. When it seemed things just made sense. I'm not sure why I've been thinking about that so much. Maybe it's the upcoming election, or the recently confirmed supreme court justice (neither of which I've allowed myself to think about for too long or I think I'll implode). Maybe it's being away from my family, and being really on my own for the first time. I feel like now nothing is easy. Maintaining relationships isn't easy. I've always been bad at maintaining relationships, staying in contact, but I'm trying to make more of an effort to do so now. I've reached out to my favorite yoga teacher, and am practicing with her (over zoom) tonight. I've reached out to people I've had fallings out with (although they're not really willing to talk since we don't have the same interests anymore). I'm trying to put in the effort so that things become easy, second nature. Being happy or optimistic isn't easy, so I'm trying. Hopefully it will become easy again.
October 28, 2020
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Have people in your community supported one another during the pandemic? Talk about why or why not, and maybe give some examples.
People in my immediate community are supportive. And I mostly don't associate with those that don't that don't believe in government or community, so my friends and family have been supportive as well. My parents had a hard time around the holidays, but it wasn't too bad, just had to adjust a few things. I find people in the community supportive of neighbours, and of where I work (nurse in hospital and community). I think for the most part people are just tired, they don't necessarily need to have their lives back exactly as they were (to me the expression "when COVID ends" has been said way too much, and I always assumed it would last a couple years), but people want to not have to think about every trip or interaction they make. The support of frontline workers is less obvious, but in individual interactions it still comes through. Many people from my neighbourhood groups have asked about my homeless clients more often, and seem to be actively donating a little more.
March 8, 2021