Sometimes genuinely good things can come out of genuinely horrific things. Exhibit A: The Pandemic.
Here is my list:
1. Part of my family and I created a short-term pod around Thanksgiving, and that’s the most consecutive time we’ve spent together in years.
2. I have many people from all four US time zones that I talk to on a regular basis (and used to see on a regular basis) and they all finally got to meet each other at my Zoom birthday party last spring. Mixing friends makes me happy.
3. The time away from my normal travel schedule allowed me to deeply consider the importance of my nationwide community, and also allowed me to become much closer to a couple New York friends because I was around to nurture those relationships. Two of us even became “regulars” at a sidewalk café in Brooklyn until it became a casualty of the pandemic.
4. I got my mom in Minnesota all set up to watch the online service from my church in NYC. We haven’t had a shared weekly experience like that since I was in high school.
5. And speaking of church, I decided to volunteer at my church’s Food Pantry, mostly to be around people (hello #extrovert), and it turns out I LOVE it and plan to continue after the pandemic.
6. New situations call for new creativity, and I got to redesign part of a conference called the Extravaganza to be online, I reimagined Vacation Bible School to be online for about 15 churches nationwide, and we put out an entire season of our web series, @ADairyTale, using extra footage from previous seasons mixed with new, creative footage.
7. I finally watched Parks & Rec in its entirety. In fact, I “finally” got to do a lot of things.
8. For many years I had to explain how my online communities created a real sense of community. Now everyone knows because everyone has experienced real online community.
What are you thankful for?