We’re One Year In: How’s Everyone Been?
While living through liminality, I’ve found my best route to survive is to trust my internal world first and take life one day, one step at a time
Is the person you are today different from the person you were 365 days ago? How so?
Personally, I’ve grown beyond belief this year. Nothing about this past year has been easy. But I am grateful for what even the most difficult hardships have gifted me.
Sure I lost a lot in 2020, but ultimately I gained so much more.
I started the year off by leaving behind everything and everyone I knew to move to a new city and start my adult life. My grandfather died 13 days later, and I was grieving physically all on my own while still trying to adjust to my new home.
By the start of February, I had $25 in my checking account, and a credit card bill several hundred dollars higher. The reality of what I once believed to be the job of my dreams did not meet my expectations and this experience ended abruptly.
I found myself unemployed by April like millions of my fellow Americans and together, we would collectively overwhelm the outdated unemployment insurance system while trying to secure some shred of emergency financial assistance.
Within a month, I pivoted from working primarily in the music entertainment industry to supporting my local food systems. I began volunteering with food hubs and distribution centers and committed myself to showing up for the same engagement opportunity each week indefinitely.
No longer isolated and alone in my home, I rediscovered my purpose and found joy in living again. I stopped consuming content from all national news outlets, including the organization I had just weeks before been employed by and shifted my attention to my local news sources only.
Eventually, I stopped reading the news altogether because I realized how the reality they portray rarely aligned with my own or most of my community.
Consuming the news instilled fear, anxiety, and despair in me that would never serve me in the long run. I’d had enough of reading about what was happening in the world as told by someone else instead of just going outside and seeing for myself.
I committed to and connected with my community in an attempt to ground myself and gain the strength I needed to move forward. Though it’s often easier said than done, I proceed through life one step at a time instead of standing still, waiting for whatever may come on the other side of the coronavirus pandemic.
This past year has taught me so many valuable lessons about how I ought to live my life, not only in this moment, but far beyond this challenging time.
Throughout the year, there’s been a lot of talk about the best way or the fastest way to end this pandemic, and right now our proposed solution is the vaccine.
While I did not come here to persuade or dissuade anyone from inoculation, I do want to raise attention to one particular sentiment: one can plan for the future, but one can never predict the outcome.
Perhaps mass vaccination does bring us all closer to the end of this pandemic. But in reality, there’s no telling what will actually happen until this supposed end arrives.
Because this time last year, we were told that if we stay inside, wear facial coverings while in public and social distance — we would slow the curve and get things “back to normal” by summertime.
But that didn’t happen did it? Because no one can predict the future, no matter how much we plan for it.
It is also crucial to note how success with any of these plans requires cooperation and collaboration from the masses. Yet that is a lot to ask of certain societies, especially one as individualistic as America.
So even if we are able to move past the perceived division and politicization of who will or won’t take the vaccine — who’s to know what will actually happen if majority of the population is eventually vaccinated.
Maybe the coronavirus pandemic will be over by the end of the year. Maybe it won’t.
Either way, we’ll still be dealing with a whole slew of pain and suffering done unto society, not simply because of coronavirus, but because of all the unjust systems created long before last year.
Instead of trusting systems and leaders who have not put in the work to show they are worth trusting. Instead of assuming our solution to overcome this pandemic is a one size fits all type deal, I’d like to propose several efforts I’ve incorporated into my own life this past year.
These practices allow me to keep my health and wellbeing in check while I protect my inner peace with each new day during this period of immense uncertainty.
Perhaps one or some of these practices will allow you to do the same. I encourage you to interpret these measures in whatever way makes the most sense for you, but please do try at least a few.
1. Eat a wide variety of fresh foods to maintain a well-balanced diet.
2. Connect with the natural world + try your best to attain a daily dose of Vitamin D.
3. Exercise your body + brain often.
4. Connect with your community. Show love to your friends, your family, your neighbors, your local business owners, your neighborhood cats, your favorite yard plants, and more.
5. Practice patience with yourself and your surroundings.
Now that I've learned how to maintain control of my body, my mind and my own time, I never want to go back to the way things were before.
Instead of working my ass off 40 hours a week for $15 an hour for companies that could care less about me an an individual and a human, I now work part-time for multiple organizations who support the communities they serve and those who serve said communities equally.
At the same time, I’m working hard to launch my first business, while I create my own stories and art consistently, and build a better life for my future self, family, and community.
I'm often juggling several endeavors at once, yet I manage to do it all because I have ample time, space and energy to figure it out my way.
Though many have been waiting patiently to do so, there is no going back to normal. Our only option has always been to move forward.
I'm extremely hopeful for the future despite the reality of the world around me because at least my passions and purpose are fulfilled internally.
There’s no telling when all this will “end” or what will come next. How the collective future plays out is completely out of our control.
But what we can control is our own reality. What we can control is how we think and act in this present moment. We get to decide what to do with our lives to make a positive difference in this moment and far beyond.
Because at the end of the day, the only person who controls you or the course of your life — is you.
Despite the hardship you are enduring, you do have all the power to shape your internal world and consequently build a better external world.
So how will you make these next 365 days worthwhile regardless of whether we are or are not still in pandemic mode one year from today?
