Forced to be present
I made the cartoon a couple weeks ago but the “we”s were “I”s and then I saw your call for posters which support mental health right now. Of course so much of our attention and energy is placed on ensuring our physical health, but as someone who is living alone during social distancing, I really felt a necessity to put a lot of my focus on my mental health as well. We will of course have a communal trauma from this, but we need to be reminded that the trauma felt individually does affect the whole. “Good people make up a good country” and I want people to stay positive and healthy and remember this isn’t a pause, this is still life! You’re still experiencing. So enjoy it. I can be pessimistic about the future and devastated by no longer having the past (I am a senior in college), but I can’t control the past being gone. I have no idea what will happen in the future because no one does. The entire world changes every day. So I really just have to live Day by day, focus my energy on myself, on the now, on what feels good and makes me happy, without judgement. Whatever can keep my spirits high while maintaining social distance and public respect (wearing masks, not going to the grocery store unnecessarily, washing hands etc.) is a top priority and should be for everyone.