Yellow: Sunshine

Hi! Such a quick turnaround, but welcome back to yet another blog post by me:)

This post will be relatively short compared to my other ones!
But first:

April:

April was a crappy month! We spent the whole month trapped inside our houses for quarantine and let me tell you: it sucks so much!
It was usually the same-old same-old:

I have two tutorial sessions a day, so two of my four groups see me on Mondays and Tuesdays and the others see me Wednesdays and Fridays. The students are always more than welcome to schedule extra time with me when necessary.
Fridays are reserved for Professional Development, as they were during the normal school year, and for Individual Student Check-Ins where we can choose to check in with whichever students we feel like need extra help, or just to chat, or maybe for an emotional pick-me-up.
I'm seeing my therapist through TeleTherapy once a week which is... interesting. She hates it almost as much as I do.
I've been searching for Housing and Scholarships to help live around and to pay for going to school this upcoming year. Thankfully, my tuition is almost fully covered, so a small scholarship (or loan, if it comes to it) will be really helpful.
I've started to keep a daily to-do list to make myself feel productive. It helps a lot to visualize my daily goals.

April 12th was Easter! I did a teleservice with my church through Zoom. It was interesting, but definitely nice to see my church community during this difficult time
That week was Spring Break. Originally Joyce and I were supposed to go and visit some family in Texas, but unfortunately that will have to be postponed due to the pandemic. Instead I spent some time watching the whole Marvel Cinematic Universe with my friends Jessica & Dianne. Others tagged along for the adventure!
Last weekend I took some of my AmeriCorps friends around a very nice, social-distance edition, tour of my hometown and surrounding areas. We got to have a spot on Misquamicut Beach to ourselves for them to see my Summer Nightbeaching Place, and we visited some of my fave eateries (Capt. Scott's & The Shack.) It was nice to be out and about while maintaining a safe distance from other people.
Other than that, not much has been going on!

Yellow: Sunshine

Yellow is the color in the Pride flag that is dedicated to Sunshine.

Before I get into the meat of the blog, however, I just want to address what my PRIDE! theme has looked like so far!

"Red: Life" talked about my queer life so far, how I've come to realize my queerness and my plan for this series, and

"Orange: Healing" talked about healing practices and unpacking emotional trauma with heavy influence from The School of Life and Steven Universe. This post didn't specifically talk about queerness, but that wasn't on purpose- it just happened to be like that. I think something that I'm realizing about this series is that, at this point in my life, while there is still so much confusion and uncertainty about how I identify sexually, it has integrated itself into my overall identity. I'm a queer person, and I'm loving that more and more about myself.

Since queerness is such a big part of me, that means that any healing processes that I go through are also healing processes for that part of my identity as well.

I felt like I needed to say that for myself so that I felt better about "leaving queerness out" of the last post, even though I could never leave it out. For me, it's always a part of the conversation.

For me, Sunshine is a physical experience... I can't necessarily talk about it in ways that I can talk about Life or Healing. And that's why I won't! I'm going to share a few thoughts about what Sunshine is like for me, and leave it with visuals of the recent bouts of Sunshine I've had with people who nourish me and my soul. I will then leave off with one of my favorite poems.

Above is a picture of my mother, the person who gave me life and has been a source of Great Love, Light, and Truth. Below you will find visuals from The $72 Coronacation Special I took last month to Puerto Rico (full photo album on Facebook) and visuals from my trip home last weekend. (Interesting fact, the Coronavirus gets it's name from the spikes that come off of it, similar to a star, like our Sun's Solar Corona! Just thought I'd drop a little Sunshine related knowledge since it's so relevant!)

Throughout my last few years in college to now, I've told people that I believe my calling in life is to spread the Love, Light, and Truth that comes from- and is- God. In emulating Jesus, I heed what he said in Matthew 5:14-16: "You are the light of the word. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house." I feel called to fulfill the last part:

"In the same way, let you light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven."

This calling has taken many shapes over the course of my life, but right now I'm the most empowered with a career goal than I've ever been: to be able to provide meaning-making methods, whether that's faith-based, or other, to marginalized youth, especially QTPOC.

I do this by constantly attempting to fill myself up with Love, Light, and Truth.

I get this from the people that love me. I get this from my connection with God. I get this from myself.

Sunshine is very important to me for this reason; it represents my calling! Maybe this is why Summer is my favorite season? Maybe this is why I wish to move somewhere warmer after grad school? I don't know. All I know is, I strive everyday to be more and more like the Sun- full of warmth, light, and helping people See.

Here are some of my sources of light over the past couple of months. I'm thankful for these places and these individuals for supporting me and helping me grow: