2020(+1) and the year of goodbyes

Every week for the past few months I thought to myself this is going to be the week that I make my online return. It has been 5 months since I last uploaded on my YouTube channel and written on this blog; nearly 12 since I stopped using Facebook and Instagram for killing time.

What I want to say to the world is: "I didn't mean to ghost you."

In many ways I feel that 2020 and 2021 was a long, overdrawn goodbye to the life I had prior to the pandemic that I haven't yet fully found closure for. I reacted to challenges I was facing in my life by completely withdrawing from the public sphere in many ways. Reflecting on this brings up a heavy feeling of shame. I'm finding it difficult to come out of hiding, but writing this is the first step.

Recently in my MSW studies, we've discussed the topic of shame, defining it as the inability to live up to a personal ideal. Shame is what fills the space between how I want to show up in the world and how I've been showing up. When it comes to endings, whether that be to a significant other, social group, employer, life stage, or former belief system, I believe it's important to find closure by facing the ending head on. For those of us in helping professions, we cannot avoid the significance of "termination" in the process of serving others.

When I was a youth worker running a mentoring program, one of the stages of mentoring that I wanted to bring mentors' attention to was the end. The reality of it was that a lot of the time these adults that volunteered to commit to spending at least a year supporting a young person in achieving their goals just ran out of steam and the relationships fizzled out, leaving the young person thinking, "What happened to this person who was supposed to be there for me? Is it even okay if I reach out to them? They are probably too busy to care about me."

In mid-2020, I actually went through the process of closing this whole mentoring program, which I spent 3 years revitalizing from the state in which I inherited it. Long story short, the organization hadn't had a sustainable way of funding the program for a while, which I was not aware of until the very end, multiple positions supporting the program were "restructured," and I picked up about three times the responsibilities to keep it going.

Once I said "goodbye" to those youth, I soon put in my own four week's notice. I was tapped out juggling all these responsibilities during the first wave of the pandemic. In the proceeding months, I transitioned a romantic relationship back to a platonic one, started and terminated my first social work field placement early, went on to withdraw from my previous graduate program, moved houses, quit most of my social media use, went through significantly difficult interpersonal challenges, and moved houses again, this time relocating to a different city. All the while, organizing groups that I was a part of also faced internal tensions and dysfunction, leading me to distance myself from most movement work and, thus, many of the social relationships I had cultivated over the past six years.

An example of an ecomap, source: www.edrawmax.com/

For one of my assignments in the new MSW program I transferred to in Fall 2021 I had to create an ecomap for myself. An ecomap is a social work tool that assesses the connections between a client and the social systems in their environment. I remember sitting down to do this assignment and felt a wave of sadness after realizing that many important social connections I had at the beginning of 2020 had deteriorated or disappeared completely.

For many of these endings, for pandemic reasons or otherwise, I didn't get closure. The life I had before 2020 lingers and haunts me. While I have been able to draw many lessons from the tumultuous happenings of the last two years, sometimes I still fault myself for not being "healed enough" to overcome the circumstances and push through. I saw all of these endings as personal failures. At the same time I've wondered how many times do I have to be the bigger person at the expense of my own needs?

I don't want this shame anymore. I want to make peace with the fact that endings don't always come neatly wrapped in a bow no matter how hard I try to control the process. I am not the same person I was before the pandemic; there is no "back to normal." There is today and how I choose to dwell on the past or let it go.

i'm not sure i want anyone to watch my videos (the truth about growing on youtube)

In the Fall of 2020 after rebranding my YouTube channel as Critical Healing Moment, I had set a goal for myself to reach 1000 subscribers by August 2021, and I nearly reached it. As I write this, I have over 950 and every time I come back to edit this blog the number keeps going up.

Why 1000?

One thousand subscribers and 4000 watch hours (the amount of time people spend watching a channel's videos) is currently YouTube's threshold for channel monetization (being able to receive money from the ads that play before, during, and after a video) and a lot of people consider that to be when one "makes it" on YouTube. Although I still feel a bit icky that, say an Asian American pandering pro-gun ad might play before one of my videos (yes, this is an ad I've seen on YouTube), achieving the eligibility of monetization would mean that I would have recognition by YouTube as having the power and influence to "sell people things" and that that power and influence could be used to advance the conversation on healing and liberation.

It took me a year and a half of making videos at a rate of around two per month to get almost 400 subscribers, and just in the last three I gained over 500 thanks to posting a critical video on the liberal YouTube "I do not dream of labor" trend. This video has over 8800 views and over 120 comments, something I could not even fathom, averaging around 100 views on my usual uploads and 1-2 comments from people I personally know.

Although it may not be considered "viral" by today's standards it was definitely a lot more attention than I was ready for. At first, it was exciting because I started to receive supportive comments that were in agreement with what I was critiquing about the trend. The more views and comments a video gets, the more it gets pushed out to other viewers. And that's when the comments that were critical of my video started coming in. Whenever I saw the notifications that I had received some new engagement, I experienced both the excitement of being recognized for the work I had been putting into making videos and the dread of reading critical comments.

I wish I could say they were "hate comments." I would almost rather people just stopped by my video to call me "ugly" and continue boosting me to the algorithm. However, the comments that got to me the most were the ones that insulted my intelligence by being condescending and patronizing, and belittling my optimistic view of human progress without trying to understand the context from which I speak. It doesn't matter how right or wrong a person may be, no one likes to be told that they are wrong or stupid.

The internet is a horrible place in terms of encouraging humanistic communication skills. As a Western society, we aren't even that good at face to face communication, especially when it is with people who are different or have different beliefs than we do. Effective communication may be one of the most important skills I've learned of and committed to developing as a youth and social work practitioner. I believe it is key to healing.

And then, there is that fear of being an "out" leftist. In many spaces that I have to navigate culturally and professionally, being anything left of Democrat is stigmatized. What would it mean for my professional social work credibility to advocate for the controversial ideology of "communism?" Social work has a problem with sitting on the fence as a profession that approaches social problems with "objectivity" and still having "social justice" as a core value.

For a period, this fear and anxiety led me to avoid engaging with my Critical Healing Moment YouTube channel. I wanted to wait until the hype died down a bit. With a deep centering breath I clicked on that red notification as I finalized editing my latest video. Nothing too bad here. I feel safe to upload this more vulnerable side of things.

So where does this leave me now? I want to set a new intention for myself in how I show up in online spaces, especially in written comments and engagements.

Firstly, I commit to pausing, breathing, and noticing. The beauty of online communication is that you can take forever to do that and the other person will never know. Perfect practice for how to do this in real time in person.

Secondly, I commit to trying to understand where the other person is coming from and what this brings up for me. This doesn't mean I have to agree with them. It just means that I accept that this is their perspective.

Thirdly, choosing to respond is a committed choice. I always have the choice not to respond if I don't feel like it will further understanding. This is counterintuitive to the way social media/YouTube works, because we are incentivized to engage with our subscribers with further exposure (the algorithm doesn't care if the comments are supportive or critical).

Lastly, if I chose to respond I commit to de-escalating. I choose nonviolence. I choose healing.

Maybe the key is that I choose. It's time to let go of our programmed, automatic trauma responses. Who's with me?

garden revelations: cherishing the temporary

Last week my computer being out for repairs offered me a lot of time that I spent away from a screen. I elected to spend a lot of that time in my garden. Gardening is a lot of work - like a lot a lot. It's an investment in your home, in yourself, and in the land. However, recently I've been having to come to terms that my time in my current residence is not permanent and my excitement for my garden has quickly turned into questions of but what is even the point?

I need to take care of my compost and rotate my crops so I can add nutrients back to the soil! But what is the point if I'm not growing here next season?

I would be great to plant kale and lettuce for the cool weather season! But what is the point if I'll be too busy to take care of it?

I'm going to buy more soil to start more plants! But what is the point if I'm going to have to get rid of it all when I move?

This coupled with some bouts of blossom end rot, powdery mildew, and tomato hornworms was enough to discourage me from tending to my plants for a bit. However, when faced with tech-free boredom, I typically need a full-body experience to keep me occupied. Thus, I spent that time cleaning up some of the mess of dead seedlings, bolted lettuce, and overgrown tomatoes. Although it started as a chore and way to keep me busy, I ended up appreciating it as an opportunity for mindfulness and the revelations that come with it. While I was pruning an extremely overgrown tomato plant my mind began to process a lot of what I had been challenged with in the recent past.

My precious cat and soulmate had been to the vet a handful of times over the past few weeks to get various tests and examinations for a number of health issues: an ear infection, possible glaucoma, and worsening symptoms of feline asthma. The medical attention he needed not only resulted in quite hefty vet bills, but will also result in long-term medications and supplies, which I needed to figure out a way to pay for on top of my own survival needs, and having to move homes, once again. So I crunched the numbers to figure out a way to quadruple my cat's monthly costs as well as save nearly $2000 for pet emergencies on my $15/hour wage.

As I thought about the amount of effort and investment I was willing to put into my cat, something that in the totality of my lifespan will only be with me for a fraction, especially with his health issues, I began to question why I felt like I shouldn't invest in something just because it is temporary.

Then again, there is the option not to continue to take my cat to the vet and order his prescriptions - but doing so would be completely inhumane.

How many times have we as humans been inhumane to ourselves just because our situations were temporary? Because we knew relationships were going to be short-term? Because they weren't "the one?" Because this wasn't going to be our "forever home?"

In my 20s I've lived in nine homes in four states. Sometimes I've collected and hauled over artwork and decor from previous homes with plans to put them somewhere special only to realize when I'm ready to hang them up I'll be moving in two months.

But the philosophy of relationship anarchy has taught me that everyone and everything can be important and cherished in your life even if it's not meant to be forever. We probably don't spend much time thinking about how this planet will keep on existing far beyond our time on it, yet even though our time on earth is temporary, it doesn't mean we shouldn't invest and take care of it, ourselves, and each other.

I have about two warm months left in the garden I worked so hard to cultivate over the past five. So, I cleaned it up and bought a lounge chair from Craigslist so I can savor every moment of sunshine left of the summer in it. I scheduled more bloodwork for my cat and woke up at 4am to shove a pill down his screaming throat while making sure he gets lots of cuddles and fancy treats. I'll continue to remember that even though we continue to face systems of oppression and injustice, this life is all we have on earth and will do my best to enjoy it while getting free.