Pandemic Reflections
A source of support.
When the first Bay Area shelter-in-place started March 16, 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it felt lonely and disorienting and pretty awful having no childcare for our 3yo with 2 full time working parents. In week 2, I sent an email to people with whom I worked closely, honoring this feeling and sharing some coping strategies I was using to create a sense of solidarity and support. This became a weekly ritual that grew over time.
In the emails, I shared a little bit about what was happening in my household as a way of normalizing the massive changes, shared strategies we were using to cope, and things I was grateful for despite everything. I invited people to reply for support and connection and to aid with professional accountability and motivation. Slowly and sporadically I invited others to join the list. Eventually, I decided the simplest way to allow people to join as they found content useful (or to opt-out if content did not resonate) was to create a newsletter and website. For the archived letters from 2020, I’ve done some light editing to provide additional context, or to remove my weekly goals. Not all have been uploaded yet, but I’ll get there eventually.
In 2021, the weekly letter has evolved into aggregations of many of my mentoring and peer-mentoring conversations. They still touch on methods I’m using to remain a whole, semi-balanced person amid parenting, grieving, and being an early/mid-career academic researcher.
In 2022, the weekly letter became a little more sporadic, but still shared reflections on things happening locally and broadly.
Week 70
Over the next few weeks, I challenge you to write down all the things that went well over the last 6-12 months. If you’re struggling with losses (including of opportunities, the “if only”s), consider making a separate list and make space to grieve them. Keep the list of what went well accessible (on your fridge or desktop) and keep adding to it. If there are things that are way behind schedule – wow, are you not alone. First, I recommend forgiving yourself for being a human surviving an (ongoing) global pandemic amid a social reckoning and political firestorm. Second, I recommend re-evaluating if those things behind schedule are still worth doing and if so, make a plan for getting them done in the coming months.
Week 58
I am angry and I am tired. There was accountability and immediately another murder of a child.
When I get overwhelmed and angry, I get aggressive and impatient – all hard edges, no soft edges. I don’t want to be nice and supportive. I want to be pity and cutting and clear. I want people to do their jobs the way I would do their jobs. It takes a lot of extra edit to add any degree of softness back in.