Creation During Catastrophe: What I've Learned During Quarantine by Chris Santoro (@santorodesign1)

I imagine there are plenty of people out there reading this, who can’t even remember this past New Year’s Eve. With how this year has gone, it feels like memories of “normal” life become more distant. While I have moments like that myself, I still remember New Year’s Eve 2019 like it was yesterday.

My girlfriend and I went out for dinner at Les Zygomates in Downtown Boston. Over drinks and dinner, we talked about how 2019 was a year of change for both of us. We’d seen each other go through our fair share of struggles and come out better, stronger than before. We saw growth in each other, and we were proud of our accomplishments. Ultimately, we were extremely optimistic about what 2020 would bring us. What more could we accomplish? What more could we discover about ourselves? We talked about traveling during the summer, finally giving ourselves a long-deserved break from our respective work obligations and a ton of built-up stress along the way. For me, I had goals related to my design studio, Santoro Design. I wanted to launch the new website early in the year, begin to get more of the projects I wanted, and eventually land an office space within a co-working space or other building.

Our hopes were up. 2020 was going to be ours. Then, all of a sudden, it wasn’t. 

By early March, COVID-19 had hit my home of Boston, MA, and it was only the beginning. Around that time, I ended up moving in with my girlfriend down in Providence, RI; escaping the initial cases building up. We watched as businesses we loved began to shut down for the foreseeable future. Restaurants we enjoyed were struggling to keep up, some of them even closed for good. I had to give up the co-working space membership I’d just gotten back in Boston since it was clear I wouldn’t be using it. Our days turned into these amorphous stretches of time. Hours blended in together. Work during the day couldn’t have been more stressful. At that point, I had to not only worry about getting enough work to sustain me, but I also had to be concerned about how I was going to do it all and not lose my mind. I knew that given the state of everything, signing on for unemployment was not going to be an option. The beginning of quarantine was a total and complete nightmare.

Here we are, in the middle of August. As I write this, I acknowledge that I’ve been extremely lucky and privileged to have thrived during this catastrophe. Not only did work never slow down, but it was the best work I’ve done in my entire career; some projects are still on-going. To say that I’m thankful for every single client and connection of mine, who made this reality possible, would be an understatement. I’m also thankful for my girlfriend, my friends, and my family who have supported me during this time. I shudder to think about how I would have fared, or where I’d be right now if it weren’t for any of them. It’s safe to say that I’ve somewhat adapted more to the “new norm,” even though it’s still uncomfortable to wake up to. While I have nothing concrete to attribute to this adaptation, I will say that life in quarantine has been helpful in reinforcing certain lessons that have brought me to this point, and will carry me further.

Allow Space For Unproductive and Negative Emotions

There’s no getting around this: life and work during quarantine have been a fight with the darkest parts of myself: the parts that just wanted to lay in bed, numb and mentally exhausted; the parts that wanted to just procrastinate that task for a little longer; the parts that brought up thoughts of, “What’s the point of any of this?” For those of us able to work from home while constantly feeling the weight of every headline and statistic, it’s been crushing blow after crushing blow to our mental health and our productivity. Contrary to popular belief, no amount of goal-setting or productivity exercises can stifle the feelings of grief, depression, and even anger. There’s no amount of telling our minds to “stop it” or “shut up” when it comes to these feelings of what we’ve all been experiencing: crisis exhaustion. 

The only way we can push through is facing these feelings head-on. We need to give them space to exist and to speak. We need to give ourselves moments to not be okay or unproductive, even meditate on them. When we give them space, we process our feelings and make it easier for ourselves to push forward. In these desperate times, and other times after this, we need to prioritize well-being over productivity, because our well-being will ultimately determine how productive we can be.

Prioritize Yourself Via Your Schedule 

As a creative professional diagnosed with ADD, working from home has been a struggle. Essentially, I was continuously running on fumes. My work got done, my clients were happy, and my studio got paid, but my general well-being was burnt out in ways I’d never felt before. I put myself on the back burner, and I felt it every day.

Since then, I’ve tried to get back to some semblance of my working hours. I have a quiet start to my mornings, work from 9 AM to 5 PM with an hour-long lunch, work out, and then make dinner. I hardly ever take calls in the morning, and I try to keep late nights to a minimum. By doing this, I’ve made efforts to try and reclaim some normalcy. Being a designer requires me to be at my best, so I can make the clearest decisions for the projects I work on, and my clients’ best interests. I know that being self-employed gives me this inherent advantage, but I also believe that these are uncertain times that require us to prioritize ourselves in whichever way possible. At the very least, we should try and reserve one hour of our day to go outside for a walk. Especially for careers in design and tech, there’s nothing more beneficial than separating from our screens and taking a break.

Limit the News Intake

2020 has had no shortage of terrible news. Since the beginning of this year, it feels like the bad news hasn’t stopped once. Especially with our phones, we’ve become a society held hostage to every notification bump, alert, and alarming tweet. This has not only contributed to my own sense of crisis exhaustion but also many of my colleagues and other people. It’s even more difficult to completely disconnect from the news as well because everything that’s been going on has been extremely important; from COVID-19 to racial justice, and our political unrest.

Whether people decide to stop or not stop news intake is up to preference. Personally, I feel like 2020 couldn’t be a more pivotal year for our country, so to stop watching or reading the news is not possible for me. However, I have been making efforts to limit the amount of news I take in during the day. I usually leave it for later in the evening or during the morning before working hours. I’ll get notifications during the day, but unless it’s extremely important I won’t click on them. If I find myself going down a rabbit hole of news overload, I try to snap myself out of it and get back to the task at hand.

We’ve Got a Long Way To Go…

The cold, hard truth is that until we get a vaccine, COVID-19 isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. However, we can at least still try and retain some balance and normalcy to our lives by prioritizing our self-care. At this point, we can’t afford to be anything but realistic about our limitations, our health, and our well-being. As long as we take care of ourselves, we’ll continue to be in better shape to stay productive. The most important thing I’ve tried to remember is that we are all learning and working through this experience together. We can only continue to be patient and caring towards ourselves, and each other.

If you enjoyed this piece, please follow Chris Santoro on Twitter @santorodesign1. 

From Friends to Words: Things Found in a Pandemic by Alexa Rose (@roserhigo)

As an extrovert with 30-some years of experience being an introvert, remaining apart from the world during a time of global crisis should be easy. I can keep myself busy with writing and editing, video games and movies, cooking and baking. But this time of pandemic and stay-at-home orders is different. I’m not staying home because of PTSD or undiagnosed gender dysphoria. Rather, I am home because I am medically vulnerable, and going into public means risking my health.

Thankfully, I am adaptable. That has been a strength throughout my life. Whether I was in the military, moving from state to state, or coming out as trans, I have adapted. So, here’s a look at the things adaptation has taught me during this pandemic.

The Importance of Friends

For a year, my Twitter friends were mostly met through the lens of likes, comments, and the occasional DM. And then, as social spheres shrank and the threat of going outside increased, the need to connect became pervasive. By means all their own, numbers were exchanged, and texts, iMessages, and phone calls became a thing among wonderful people I’m so happy to call my friends. In an world where six feet might as well be a mile, a phone call has renewed importance. It is socializing, and I love it.

What do we talk about? Work, sometimes. Video games, here and there. Hardships, feelings, passions, and goals come up often. We laugh a lot. There have been tears. But now these are shared experiences unfiltered through a screen and without the best guesses of autocorrect.

Where once I was content to return home, lock the door, and sequester myself behind the autoplay drone of Netflix or the colorful chaos of a video game (I’m looking at you, Final Fantasy 14), I now look forward to these texts and calls with friends.

And there are local friends, too. I see them from time to time in town, but we mostly stay connected through social media, texts, and emails. Frankly, it’s good to know new and old friendships can endure this extended period of limited contact.

Skills I Had Thought Lost

Through my friends’ encouragements, I have rekindled lost passions. After being listless and disinterested for so long, I nearly forgot the joys I had once done for a living. Years of depression had told me I was not good enough, but now, friends tell me that voice was a liar.

I’d spent three months learning 24 college credits’ worth of public affairs material in 2009, and I’d worked in public affairs until 2012. From then to 2020, those skills had gone unused. But I love working in public relations and marketing. So I was thrilled when I was asked to do contract work managing two brands and helping to build a third. I know I have a knack for talking with people. My design sensibilities usually hit the right notes. And I love writing, so drafting site or ad content is always a pleasure. But I especially love that, after a day of design and toil, I have a unique creation to give to my partners, friends, or clients. 

I also found my lost love of short fiction. I wrote my first short story in 1998. Oh, how flat the characters and ham-fisted the narratives, but some moments stuck with me. Back then, I’d written about a woman who was an agent for a shadowy intel organization. She was commanding, unfettered, and a complete and total anti-hero. I’d go on to write intermittent short stories through seven years of university studies and six years in the military. And then I turned my focus to narrative fiction in novels. I enjoy what I wrote during that time, but none of it has stuck with me. The short stories I wrote this year were my first since I’d graduated college in 2012, and I think they turned out well.  I submitted all three for publication. One was accepted, and I’m confident the other two will find homes.

Writing Reflections of Today

The stories I write now are fundamentally different from those I wrote two years ago. In that time, I have transitioned, been through other life changes, and watched as this pandemic has swept across the globe. My stories have more edge to them. They are darker, but there is also a steady pulse of hope flowing through their lines. 

Pre-pandemic, I wrote a fantasy/lite-romance manuscript. It took me eight months to world-build, write, and revise, and as I write this, I am awaiting a beta reader’s feedback. The story had conflict, friendship, and love. It was part of my transition, and it will forever be special to me.

Now, I am world-building a cyberpunk story. It is dark and oppressive by design. Set a hundred years in the future, I envision a corporate dystopia that builds from where we are today. Pandemics are part of this tech-ruled world. Social distancing is commonplace due to global access to wireless and satellite internet. There is a recurring theme of isolation.

The last short story I wrote was set in 2020, and it discussed the pandemic. My characters had found ways to remain happy despite the threat of infection. Like me, they were isolated, found joy in limited company, and embraced their work and hobbies. They were mirrors of my identity, and they helped me understand how I was coping with these changes to society and life.

Identity in a Pandemic

I had worried this continued isolation would wreak havoc on my mental health. However, the inverse happened. I am happier now than I have been in years. 

While the pandemic is certainly a crisis, it sits on one side of the scale. The other side holds my transition, my writings, and my growing list of friends. I talk and text with wonderful people every day. We support one another, and we make each day about something other than the pandemic or social issues. We don’t discuss politics. We do find reasons to laugh.

My identity has rallied around these friendships. It has been bolstered by my writing. And it is wholly wrapped up in my transition. Despite the divisions that keep people apart today, I am happy to be a friend to so many wonderful people. I am delighted to be a writer. And I am forever overjoyed to be me.

If you enjoyed this piece, please follow Alexa Rose on Twitter @RoseRhigo. 

Suffering As A Teacher by ASH (@ASHnovelist)

I want to look at the question itself: What did I learn from quarantine life?

There’s a famous Bryant McGill quote that, “suffering is one of life’s great teachers.” But I don’t think it’s a kind teacher, nor a compassionate one. I think it’s the kind of teacher that barks orders, punishes fast, expects too much from its students. I think what makes suffering such a great teacher, is that it’s effective at making you retain information. However, I don’t think that we always learn the right lessons from our suffering, simply that we feel an overwhelming need to prevent this suffering in the future. Our minds come up with reasons for our suffering but those reasons might not have any basis in fact. Our brains may create coping mechanisms, but they might not be healthy for our long-term survival.

For those of you who don’t know who I am, I’m ASH. I’m a coward who hides behind an icon instead of showing their face. I’m scared of a lot of things, I try to please others because I don’t want confrontation, and I don’t know who I am. I think that these flaws, and many others, exist within me because of my childhood abuse. I was made to suffer and so I learned. I learned to associate common household objects with abuse. I learned to do what others want so they won’t focus their aggression towards me. I learned to never be certain with my beliefs because I was constantly told that those beliefs were wrong. These are lessons that might’ve helped me when I was young and under attack, but as an adult, they keep me from being happy and they keep me from being able to make connections. These are lessons that I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to unlearn.

Nice sob story. Boohoo who cares, right? I’m inclined to agree, but I feel like my suffering can help to explore this issue without things getting personal. I think there’s something deeper at the heart of the question: “what did you learn from quarantine?” And that’s the false assumption that suffering MUST be meaningful. Every horrible thing that happens to us has to have a reason, right? But why?

When bad things happen to us, we react, we cope, we recuperate, and then we evaluate; not necessarily in that order. When we evaluate our suffering, our brain is looking to prevent this horrible thing from happening again. If only I had checked my emails before walking out the door, I wouldn’t have gotten in that fender bender. If I had slowed down sooner, the car would’ve seen me. But this isn’t always true. Not all moments of suffering are preventable. It didn’t matter if I stopped playing with dinosaurs, or stopped reading about dinosaurs, or read about Greek Mythology, or studied mathematics. I was always going to be dumb and immature to my abuser. It was never about what I did, it was about them having power over me. There was no way for me to stop my abuse by changing my behavior. Similarly, sometimes you just get hit by another car.

There isn’t always a lesson to be learned from suffering. We want to believe that there’s some great lesson to learn so that it will never happen again. That impulse is strong and very human and I don’t want to shame people for having such a natural reaction, but we are not machines. We are capable of thinking about how we come to conclusions and why. When something bad happens, there isn’t always a way to stop it. I couldn’t stop my abuse because I never even knew to recognize it as abuse. With great introspection and understanding, we can recognize when we are powerless and fight the urge to jump to false conclusions that make us feel better about the future.

Moving into quarantine, I knew that I was troubled and flawed and weighed down by whatever undiagnosed mess the psychologists would call my mind. What I didn’t understand was how badly I had self-isolated before any of this began. My fear of socializing took my friends from me. It did it by degrees, convincing me that a phone call was too little, or that they were probably too busy to make time for me. Then my brain told me that I was a low-value friend and that all of my interactions with them were negative. Then it repackaged every conversation I ever had with them and turned it into a highlight reel of them being disgusted with me and them lying to feel good by taking pity on someone so repugnant. Six months before Quarantine started, I’d told my best friend that talking to them caused me anxiety and we stopped talking.

It took me a while to realize the truth of my situation. Much of my failings, my decreased memory, my mood, my appetite, were starting to be picked up by other people. Now that the world was in isolation, I started to see the true impact of isolation on the human mind. As bad as I was, my fears had only made things worse. The lessons of my suffering were only causing more suffering.

So I’m a mental wreck, who cares? Well, the thing about big events is that there aren’t easy answers. If a tornado hits your house while you were wearing a blue shirt, never wearing a blue shirt won’t protect you from tornadoes. So when buildings are hit by airplanes our minds aren’t okay with that. There has to be a reason! There must be something we can do to make sure a President is never shot again. That’s when conspiracy theories start. That’s when people believe that vaccines cause autism. COVID-19 will cause a flood of new conspiracy theories about how the youth, the left, the conservatives, the elderly, the government, or the corporations engineered a virus to kill hundreds of millions of lives. (I really hope we don’t match Spanish Flu numbers.) What’s important is that we don’t fall into that trap.

Suffering tries to force us to learn a lesson, but there’s never a guarantee that we’ll learn something useful. I think that on an individual level we can all learn a lot about ourselves during quarantine, but I don’t think that this pandemic should be the time to learn big lessons about the nature of the human mind or make sweeping generalizations about a group of people. I learned that I like kombucha, but only if it’s flavored rose or pomegranate. I learned that I have a lot of trouble working in the same room as my partner. I learned that hugging a stuffed parakeet can help me cope as an adult. I learned that I can’t live without friends even if having them is physically painful. I didn’t learn why COVID-19 has killed far more Americans than any other country.

If you enjoyed this piece, please follow ASH on Twitter @ASHnovelist.