What a GD Year: Lessons Learned

It’s nearing the end of the year and I’ve been seeing a lot of roundups of best album and tweets you may have missed, and it just feels like we’ve all made the collective decision to not make content about 2020 highlights, which I really appreciate. 2020 has been an exceedingly difficult year for the entire world, and the last thing people need is a celebration of fleeting moments that can never outweigh the depth of darkness of the year in its entirety.

I don’t need to go into detail about how awful this year has been on everyone emotionally, physically, mentally, but do know one thing. If you’re reading this, you almost made it through 2020. It is not a small feat. Everyone should be proud of themselves.

Though I hate recaps, this one is a bit more personal to me, because there were so many events that have forever changed the way I navigate and perceive this world. I learned a lot about myself and society’s capacity for change, which will only help inform my future, but it hasn’t been easy.

Don't Stop Relieving: $600 Is Not Enough

IT IS FRIGHTENING to know that the people we have elected to represent us have come together to form a bill that will dole out direct payments of a mere $600 to families in this time of crisis as if this amount is enough to cover significant expenses.

Another American Historical Failure: Mishandling of the Pandemic

What has been really turning over in the ol’ noggin these last few weeks is how we as a nation continue to reconcile the failings of the US Government and our many institutions, specifically as it pertains to the pandemic. It hasn’t been said nearly enough: Our Government failed its duty to protect its citizens during a global pandemic and nobody is taking responsibility. It’s beyond the president.

Forgive Yourself, Keep Going

This is advice I am constantly trying to give myself in moments like this where I’m feeling incredibly unmotivated and hopelessly petrified when it comes to completing any sort of task. It’s been a week of not updating the ol’ blog and it takes everything in me not to chalk it up to a complete failure of my mind or some kind of other lacking area on my part. I have to constantly remind myself that I am allowed to have good and bad days, productive and unproductive weeks, calm and tumultuous months. Not to mention that I am- we all are still experiencing a global pandemic that has completely upended our way of life and has resurfaced inequality in a way that is not only necessary but painfully devastating. It always helps me to read I’m not alone spiraling into oblivion, so I thought I‘d write out here how I’ve been handling things in case anyone else is feeling equally BLAH.

Thanksgiving: A Day to Be Thankful, A Day to Mourn

Indigenous people of this country are mourning all across the country today while lies continue be told in our school system that downplay the vile mistreatment of the original proprietors of this land. There are any different origin stories of how Thanksgiving came into being. One of them is the meal that the pilgrims were indulging in was not in celebration of their newfound kinship, it was in celebration of a strike against the native people resulting in the deaths of 700 people from the Pequot tribe after a man was found dead in his boat. It was in retaliation for his death because the Pilgrims thought that tribe was behind it. So they crept into their land and burned their houses down while they were asleep. Another story is that when the settlers first arrived they did have a meal and after hearing gunshots the Massasoit people came to check it out. They were invited to eat with them but there wasn’t enough food, so the Massasoit sent out hunters and they returned with 5 deer, but this was in March. While it might be nice to cling onto that latter account to attribute this holiday to something less iniquitous, it’s in this country’s best interest to, how do I put this mildly, pull its head out of its rear.