Over the past year, or really the past many years, I have been trying to figure out how to connect with friends and family who are far away. I moved from the East Coast to the Midwest for college, fell in love, got engaged, and now have ~settled down~ here (wow I feel old). And the hardest part of this, layered with a global pandemic, is that I have to be a lot more purposeful in staying connected to people. And I have also discovered during this time that I am Very bad at that.
Its really hard to:
- Schedule time to talk to people/reach out to people (who else is afraid of being annoying or too much…)
- Figure out a succinct and yet accurate answer the the Large Question that is “How are you?” or “What’s new?” (And I often assume no one actually wants to know the full details of that)
- Time zones are mean
- Talking on via video call of any sort is so anxiety inducing and Also too easy to get out of/think of a reason why I can’t go
- Schedule things when I have no concrete schedule ever. Does that mean I am always free? or am I never free?
And because of the multitude of reasons why I have struggled with keeping up with people, it is now even more overwhelming to try to overcome this distance that has been created. I also have about 82367894 projects going at once at all times, and am so excited about them and want to share these things, but I assume that to tell anyone about them would be to bother them. So what if instead, I do that telling once, all in one place.
My hope here is that my family, friends, or other people in my life can look here to see what I am up to, and I can use this space to process and share, and hopefully, practice being more open. So far I have many drafts of thoughts about everything ranging from queerness to abolition to mathematics to crocheting and lots more. Welcome to my attempt at communicating honestly and openly, even if it is from a distance.
Critical Points (of a Multivariable Function) 