Meet Mick.

I live in Seattle. I’m a queer, trans person. I’m also a Gemini.

I think that for a long, long time people will be studying how a mutual aid and community support truly saved and got a lot of people through this time. And also the impact that’s had on everyone’s mental and emotional health and just the collective trauma that so many people have experienced in the last year. Those of us that were lucky to survive the last year…

Adjusting the questions we’re asking one another. I think a lot of people have experienced that where instead of being like, “How are you? How’s it going?”

 Just acknowledging that so many people are collectively traumatized and maybe don’t know how they’re doing. Maybe don’t want to think about how they’re doing, because that’s a lot to think about right now.

 And trying to find alternatives to check in with people and I have one friend where sometimes I’m like, “Learn anything new recently? What did you do today?”

“What do you want to do tomorrow? Nothing? That’s fine.”

I think finding a communication that is authentically where we’re at instead of acting like anyone was not touched by this global experience in the last year. I think just at least acknowledging it feels really important.

I feel like any employer trying to get people to come back and not acknowledge that we’ve been through a collectively traumatic event. A lot of people have died in a lot of different direct COVID and indirect ways.

 I think it is naive and it’s not representative of the human experience and I think being patient and acknowledging that people are going to be in really different places for a while, processing this experience and we’re still in this experience, is important.

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