Letter to my cohort:
I hope you guys are all doing well, mentally and physically. My family and I are all currently healthy at the moment which I am thankful for.
Life in the time of the coronavirus has been a wild ride, and has made me (and I'm sure all of us) adapt rather quickly to the realities of the future. With the looming threat of climate change I always assumed society would go through drastic changes that would have lasting effects, whether they be positive or negative, but I just thought we had a few more years to prepare for this. COVID-19 had other plans.
At first, I was angry and disappointed with not being able to socialize with my friends, not being able to achieve my education through the classroom setting, and now not being able to celebrate graduation with all of our classmates. It was selfish, but something I needed to realize and learn from my mistake. This is an issue regarding all of humanity and the world doesn't revolve around me and what I want. Coming home to my parents house made me realize this point as well because my dad is 65 and my uncle has a weakened immune system. I needed to change my mentality to one that encompasses the needs of others. Like most things, time has healed my irrelevant wounds and allowed my perspective to grow into interests in other areas.
I am lucky enough to grow up in a rural area where my parents have 10 acres of oak habitat, so I have just been immersing myself in nature during this time of isolation. I have been fishing, hunting, cutting fire wood, planting trees, building sheds, fixing our chicken coop, and started a garden with my dad. Practicing for my future homestead lifestyle that I would really love to have. Its hard work but I enjoy because it keeps me active and my mind has a place to escape to from the outside issues of the world, even if only for a portion of the day. I don't want to hide from the problems at hand, but to me its important to give myself a reprieve so that there is balance in my life.
My work for my service learning project, which was installing a solar project on my tribes reservation, is still ongoing but just done remotely. We're in the stages of presenting the overall timeline and implementation plan to the tribal council so they can vote on it. This also helps with the day-to-day boredom because I still feel that I am working on something that benefits other people and the environment. It provides motivation to not just toss in the towel and shut myself completely away from the outside world. Finding the balance between isolation and motivation has been what I have been working on mostly for myself these past 3 weeks.
I truly hope you guys are all expanding your interests into positive directions and making the best of what you can out of a shitty situation. I think there will be a window for us to enact real change in a short amount of time once this global tragedy begins to subside. We can and will be leaders in this change because we know this isn't the end of the issues we have ahead of us. For now I am just trying to stay strong and prepare myself for when that time comes so that I can take full advantage of it.
Much love!
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