This themed series titled “Time Capsule Letters” is a special series created to highlight submissions for the Community-Driven Archives (CDA) team and community members regarding their lives during COVID-19 and the hopes for our lives after COVID-19. We hope to continue this series with contributions from community members by having you submit your own time capsule letter to yourself or others regarding life during COVID-19. Please contact me, Jessica Salow, if you are interested in submitting a letter to be featured on our blog. And please also contact me with feedback or other community archiving questions at Jessica.Salow@asu.edu, as I would love to hear from you regarding your thoughts of the work we here at ASU are doing in community archiving around Arizona. See you next week!
Digital Timecapsule
Dear post-pandemic Jessica:
Hey you. I hope you are doing well today. As I write this it is May 15, 2020 which means it has now been 2 months since the quarantine happened for you. I have so many hopes right now for life after quarantine that I feel overwhelmed by them all. I want you to know first and foremost though is that I love you and you did the best you could during this unprecedented time. I hope things haven’t gone back to “normal” in regard to the way life was before the pandemic. I hope that we as a society have established a new normal that takes into account every aspect of life in regard to the safety and wellbeing of ALL humans on this Earth.
To get back to you, I hope you are doing the things you have put off over the last year that you keep thinking about how you should have done before the pandemic started. I know these things have been on your mind for a long time and this was the year you were planning to do them and I hope that you have taken that leap to accomplish these long time goals. I want our life filled to the brim after this with love not only from our family but our friends and the people that mean the most to us. Hold them tight and share with them how much you appreciate them being in your life and sticking with you when things were at their worst. Consider breaking out of your comfort zone, if you haven’t already, and do things that speak and feel good to you. No longer let the what-if’s and I should have’s keep you from doing things that make you feel whole.
Overall, know that you rock and that whatever happens after this you can handle. People have called you Superwoman in the past for everything you took on and I know that some of those things greatly hurt you. But you GOT this and don’t let anyone or anything keep you from realizing your potential and the growth you have accomplished to this point. Keep that smile and knock the socks off of people who have doubted you and will continue to doubt you. And finally, have patience with yourself. You have been through a lot and this pandemic has proven that life is short and what comes with life after this will only provide how much of a bad ass you are and have always been.
Take care of us. We are counting on you.
With love,
Jessica