What this Pandemic has *given* us.

There’s been a lot of focus this year on what the Coronavirus pandemic has taken away from us. I’d like to flip it.

🔸What has the coronavirus pandemic GIVEN to you?🔸

For me, it has given me opportunity to heal. I was able to spend a significant time at home with my family.

These are a couple of things that resulted:

- TIME WITH MY SON: I have struggled with working full time and having to send my only child to someone else to be raised. (When I thought about it, with a bed time of 8 PM, I was only getting 3 hours a day with my son during the work week. And I also had to fit in the routines of meal, bath and bed time in those 3 hours). I have been horribly depressed about this for the last 2 years and have been trying to find way to only work part time or work from home so I could spend more time with my son. The pandemic allowed me to stay home and for almost 2 months I was able to spend significant time with my son. I discovered that “working from home” is still working and I can’t split my time between being a present mother and being a productive employee. I discovered that I would rather be a present mother with my son for a shorter amount of time than a half-present mother a lot of the time. Quality over quantity! I was also able to return to work with a renewed sense of dedication.

- TIME WITH MYSELF: Spending this time at home has made me really look at where I want to be in my life, what I want to accomplish, what I value and how I want to live. I have completely reconsidered my life to determine how my values contribute to how I love and i have adjusted a few things. One big example is the establishment of Little Cub Books, LLC. I realized while we were at home, that our language, art and culture werent as present in our lives as I wanted. After working toward using more language in the home with our 1-year old, Benjamin and I realized that there weren’t a lot of language learning resources available to us for our toddler. We maxed out all of our resources, YouTube, Sealaska (we have requested so many archives from SHI I think the archivists know me by name), our extensive libraries, Baby Raven Reads books, and it still wasn’t enough. We wanted more. So we came up with Little Cub Books, LLC. This is something we very much want for all of the families who find themselves in the same predicament! This wouldn’t have happened without the pandemic.

- TIME WITH MY PARTNER: Spending a lot of time at home gave myself and my partner the opportunity to really examine our relationship and plan our future together. A lot of stuff came up. We were NOT on the same page about a few things. We were able to have some tough conversations about how we can move forward together as complete partners. Completing our strategic planning and developing our business plan for Little Cub Books has greatly contributed to conversations about our lives and relationship. On paper, we are equal partners. In life, we are equal partners. These conversations wouldn’t have happened without the pandemic.

Another huge perk?

More things are moving to virtual or remote! This is huge for places like rural Alaska. We can now complete more things via distance! It feels good that more of America are experiencing our circumstances of being cut off from so many things, and “feeling” our pain. It has opened things up so much for everyone.

🔹🔹🔹So tell me, what has this pandemic provided you?🔹🔹🔹