how we're doing (part three)
The following is part three of an ongoing series (I guess we can call this a series?) wherein I ask a whole bunch of polls and questions on my Instagram (this time 29 total) that check-in on how we are doing and I turn those answers into a blog piece.
This piece is put together with answers that were collected about one month ago and the context in which I am writing this piece is a much different one than the one in which I asked the questions. To be honest, I’ve gone back and forth a lot while writing – wondering if this piece still makes sense. I understand that after a month, and this past month in particular, that answers may have changed. I know that the feelings reflected here could have shifted. That said, after a lot of thinking, and asking on my Instagram for thoughts (a poll about the polls how meta of me) I decided that it was the right call to finish this piece.
I am always so grateful to everyone who takes the time to answer one or even all of the questions I ask online and always impressed by this community’s willingness to lean in and to be vulnerable. Maybe some of us would give different answers to these questions now. But I do think that there is a hopefulness found in these answers that could still feel true. My hope is that there are still nuggets of comfort, validation, and motivation within this piece. My hope is that this piece, and this series (I guess if we are calling this a series), continues to remind us that we are not alone, even in the parts of us that hurt.
A final note before we really get into it: I wrote a piece about a week ago reflecting on the past few weeks and BLM more broadly. I hope maybe you will take a moment to read that too. You can find that here.
On the day polled, 57% of us felt :) more than we felt :/
A few days later, more than half (59%) of us said our mental health could be better.
Maybe these two data points seem to contradict each other. I think they reflect an honest, complicated reality.
Early-Mid May felt Intense. Better. Strange. Chaotic. Violent. Confusing. Draining. Relaxing. Tiring. Hopeful.
Even as every state has begun to re-open (albeit at drastically different rates), there are still parts of “normal” life or life as it used to be that are not possible and perhaps won’t be possible for a long time. So many of us, dare I say all of us, are missing something –
HUGGING PEOPLE
Museums
Having all my friends living together
Being able to pick out outfits and get ready with friends
Not having to have to factor in the economy and limited air travel in life and career choices
Sitting. In. Coffee. Shops.
Summer country concerts
Elevated surfaces
Journaling without having to contemplate heavy life changes every time
COLLEGE
My Colgate people + the gym
Hugs
My dad
My friends!
Being outside (city life is hard)
Colgate and my friends!
My friends
Fun and big gatherings with family & friends
Being able to be with people without the stress of corona
Traveling
Colgate
Hugging my dad, and him snuggling with my daughter.
Working from coffee shops
Rooftop season
Colgate and going to Flour & Salt
Hugs
There are things we want –
To hug you again
My routine back
Cuddles
My August graduation to work out
A big hug from my significant other
To hug and kiss my baby cousin
To go to the beach
To get on a plane
To travel and explore
To go on outdoor adventures with my friends
Things to go back to normal or just to be able to hug my friends
To have a plan
To be around friends and family again
To feel less scared about the state of the re-opening world
To browse target for fun
NYC pizza
An income again
Drive with my friends
To have certainty
When brainstorming questions to ask this time around, I thought to ask the question that sparked community-sourced pieces on this blog two years ago: what gets you out of bed in the morning? And if you’re reading this right now, a piece of advice – click here and read that piece before you keep reading this. It is, for lack of a better word, incredibly interesting to compare what we got out of bed for then to what we get out of bed for now. Speaking broadly, my sense is that we used to get up for events and activities. We got out of bed to see our friends or go to class or commute to work. We got out of bed so we could be productive, so that we could do something or go somewhere. Now, it seems like there are more relaxed reasons we get up.
Coffee lol
My job!
Recently the driving factor has been my dog’s needs. She needs to be let out and fed
Making a smoothie in the morning!
Coffee :) but also my family
People I love and hope for a new adventure soon
Making myself iced coffee. Also I get myself up to workout cause it gives me endorphins. I guess I’ve become that person
Sunshine :) and breakfast haha
The prospect of unexpected positive moments throughout the day
Work and working out!
Going for runs / working out
Alarm
Honestly the coffee waiting for me downstairs
Coffee lol
I do not want nor do I think it is my place to qualify any of the reasons any of us are getting out of bed. What I will offer is this: I feel like there is a lot of hope in the reasons we get out of bed right now. A lot of what we used to get up for isn’t possible anymore but we’ve found new reasons. There are less places to go and we can’t see as many people but we still find reasons to leave our sheets. I think we have to, on some level, feel some sense of hope or possibility to do that. We’ve become more excited about the quieter things and that to me feels hopeful.
Once we are up, here’s how we are filling the day…
Just giving myself a break to recharge
Working out, walks with mom, TV
Way too much Parks and Rec
Napping
Enjoying the warm weather
Supposed to be working and I’ve been avoiding that all day – watching TikTok, YouTube, etc.
Watching Avatar: The Last Airbender like it’s 2006 :)
Reading and walking lol
TikTok
Cooking, baking, working out, and online shopping
Painting my house :/
Being in the sun and reading!
Reading
Binge watching Bravo (Below Deck, Southern Charm), cooking, redoing bedroom :)
Fussing over my plants
Working out, reading, eating lol
Netflix, crafts, internship, sitting on my phone for hours at a time :/
Swimming and experimenting with recipes
Thinking about Paul Mescal from Normal people
and, even as we enter month 4 (roughly) of living with increased restrictions, I am impressed by the commitment of this community to continue to try new things. Things like …
Start a YouTube channel
Cooking new dishes!
Making quesadillas
Knitting
I tried to start writing in a journal
GF bread baking!
A new beer from a local brewery
Homemade raw ahi bowls
Hiking!!
Drawing
Vegetarian diet
New job training!
Listen to a political podcast with my brother and had a good convo
I tried tofu – did not end up liking it
I’ve been obsessing lately about all the “shoulds” in my life. You know, the feelings that I should be doing more or creating more or using this time differently somehow. It’s a lethal combination of too much time left alone with my own thoughts and the ever popular comparison game we all play with each other over social media that’s led to me “should-ing” all over myself. And as much as “each of us are on our own path” it sometimes gets lost that it’s not a race. I struggle to remind myself that it’s okay to slow down and to have so many questions. And it turns out, I’m not alone in that.
Even though 62% of us are more or less keeping a routine and 64% of us feel like productivity is important right now, only 48% of us feel like we have been productive.
82% of us have felt pressure to be productive or creative during quarantine. I guess most of us are “should-ing” all over ourselves.
Like I said, this tension between feeling the pressure to be productive right now and feeling like I’m not living up to that pressure is something I am very much working through too. So it is a reminder to myself as much as it is an encouragement to anyone who feels the way I’m feeling right now to say that it is okay. Productivity in its traditional sense might not be or feel possible right now and that is okay. Taking things a bit slower right now is okay. I heard that reminder a lot back in March and I guess I just mean to say that I think it still holds true now.
A note: the one thing we all should be doing right now is antiracist work every single day. We should be listening, watching, reading, signing, calling in, calling out, and holding space for the Black Lives Matter movement. Silence is not an option. This is the one, and perhaps only, “should” in our life we need to be accountable for.
Last time we did this I dedicated a day of questions to check-in exclusively about health, fitness, and wellness. As of that post, we found that 92% of us have a different approach to health, fitness, and wellness right now than we did before and 87% of us are experiencing some level of stress or anxiety around health, fitness, and wellness. I imagine that those numbers still feel somewhat true.
A lot of us (89%) of us are finding time to feel to the sun. To me at least, this feels like an investment in wellness.
Some other things we have been doing for our health and wellness lately …
Drank kombucha
Long walk with a good podcast
Went for a run/walk outside in the sun
Make wellness goals with my family!
I did some workout classes
Went on a run at dusk & watched the sunset after
Boxing :)
Bike ride!
Had deep, real, vulnerable conversations with friends I hadn’t seen in a long time
Ran a half marathon!!!
A long bike ride along the river!
Worked out
Went rollerblading
Spent time outside
Walked with a friend I haven’t seen in a long long time
Yoga
Ran outside!
Kayaking!
Did a 10k!
Took an off day from working out
Didn’t drink !!
Go to bed earlier than usual
As of mid-May, things seemed to be looking up at least a little bit.
What has felt encouraging lately?
Being able to gather with people outside from a safe distance!
Been able to see friends again in small groups, distanced
So many FaceTime calls
Figuring out how to see friends outside in socially distant ways
Speaking with the Colgate Counseling Center!
There are though still ways in which we feel stuck and moments that leave us feeling discouraged.
What feels heavy lately?
All the pain and injustice in American rn
The news/everything going on this week is really unsettling
Harder to keep up with my friends, Zoom gets so tiring
The news cycle
Not knowing when things will ever be actually normal again
The fact that I feel as though I have to find something to keep myself busy
Ignorant white people
The future/working
Nobody in my area bothering to wear a mask. The potential that I won’t go back to school for fall. Uncertainty about whether my internship will transfer to in-person (no housing, health), cabin fever creating tensions between and among my frustrated family members
As all this racism is being brought up in the news, I feel as though my college friends have never initiated a talk about race with me, and being the only non-white one in the group it’s been heavy on me, especially now
Government response to Covid
Police brutality and racist institutions and people in power
Being a Minnesotan
Studies especially my end-of-study project
Motivating to reach out to friends
Waking up and being productive; time just seems to pass by and I have no control over it
The past month has felt heavier and as a white woman I know that the weight I feel cannot compare the weight POC, and the Black community in particular, must feel. I imagine that the list of what feels heavy right now would be longer if I asked again today. I just want to acknowledge that. I want to say that I see you and I am standing with you through this. I believe in our collective resiliency.
Despite frustrations, feeling stuck, and perhaps the sharper pain of the past few weeks, there have been moments worth smiling about.
Cookies!
Catching up with friends over FaceTime
Saw a puppy
My dog being silly
I got an inflatable kids pool for my birthday lol
A collection of cute TikToks that gave me SERATONIN
We’ve heard good news.
High schoolers in NJ are now allowed to have some sort of graduation ceremony
My brother won a scholarship for college!
My parent’s parents celebrated their 26th wedding anniversary!!
My country is beating Coronavirus
I was offered some part time work!!!!
I got a summer job!
My 87-year-old grandma is fully recovered from Covid :)
And so, as we end another longer blog piece, my parting words to you -
I hope that at least some of what you read here has aged well. I hope something in this collection of advice and vulnerability helped you feel a bit seen. I know it is has certainly helped me to re-read these answers. I am encouraged by our progress and by our dedication to seek out joy.
How we think about community right now is changing. It changed at the start of COVID-19. It changed when we were all more strictly quarantined and we had to find new ways to be in community with one another. It changed when we started to FaceTime more and check-in with friends more often and more intentionally. Community is changing again right now. It is changing as states begin to re-open. I hope we do not forget what we have learned these past few months about being intentional about connection. I hope that we continue to hold ourselves accountable for following the restrictions that remain. I know it is summer and I know we are sick of being cooped up, but commitments like wearing masks and keeping 6-feet distance cannot begin to be compromised. I hope we still understand the role each of us play in continuing to protect our community.
Community is also changing amidst the Black Lives Matter movement. We need to demand better of our community. And really I am speaking to my white peers when I say we need to hold both ourselves and each other accountable. Community does not necessarily mean to passively or comfortably coexist. Rather we need our community to be willing to get uncomfortable. We need to be a community open to and actively fighting for change.
Our sense of community is changing. Our grasp on the world is changing. A lot of the time that feels really scary. I think maybe it could also feel hopeful.
You’ll notice that the lengthy recommendations list normally used to close out these pieces is missing. On June1st I launched “Notepad” - a page on my blog that will be the go-to place for recommendations, suggestions, running lists, etc. going forward. You’ll need a password to get in and I’ll email it to you as soon as you subscribe to my blog.
I really appreciate the support I received in putting together this piece. I am proud to be walking through this moment with all of you.
In solidarity. xo.