Featured Refresh
Text & Image
How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
I took this photo of my wife working from home about a month ago and it’s one of my favorites. It really captures this year for me. Although it’s been a year of disruption and isolation from many of our friends and family, it’s also been a year of getting so much more time together and of comfort, warmth, and love. That’s what this picture represents to me. The end of this week will mark when my vaccine should be fully effective and I’ve really started to think about what life is going to be like coming out of this. It’s been weird because I have spent so long trying to prepare to be in this altered state for a very, very long time, that I didn’t really allow myself to think about going “back to normal.” And now normal feels like the altered state. Now going back to the way things were seems almost disruptive because we’ve adapted to how life is now. Already work is going back to regular full schedules and I’m not really looking forward to that because I’ve enjoyed the time off even at a reduced paycheck. I am looking forward to seeing friends and my family again but I still don’t even know when that will be. I think we will have to start small and go from there. I do hope we can keep some of the habits and lessons and good things from this year - an appreciation of time with each other and slowing down every once in awhile.
March 14, 2021
Text Only
Talk about any new groups or communities you’ve joined since the pandemic began.
I joined a new social justice group as though to scap myself back together from the hostile work environment from a previous social justice organization that I dedicated 10 years of my life to. I feel bittersweet as I nostalgically look back at what I have done for them, how I have grown and had to leave to flourish in a new community And so, here I am now, reconnecting with a religious church, with an upcoming social justice group formed back in June 2020 and yet I feel like I can do so much more with my own curriculum development as a doctoral student. So much within the unknown and as my eyes struggle to stay awake from exhaustion, tears, and tiredness that drag me down as I push myself to complete more. Social media has reinforced the notion that I will eternally be enough to never be enough. The constant internal battle I have with myself, about having to maintain my femininity by being think, to idealize marriage and my own body's capabilities to have children.. I find myself lost in the social constructs within our society I am stuck between a red and blue pill just like the matrix. Only this time, the blue pill is a hoax like our president; made of something that can fill me up and be processed through to continue the lie we all live in. The red pill is the only option to sustain my bloodflow as I learn new things about myself.
October 28, 2020