Member-only story
2 Years in 5 minutes
Around the time when the pandemic first began, I had a three-month casual relationship with a black/Korean boy about my age, and it was not a satisfying one. It ended quite quickly and suddenly. He never replied to my text, and that was the last I heard from him. I also decided to give up on romantic relationships for a while and deleted all my dating apps.
Then everything shut down. There was a hiring freeze, I was looking for jobs since I was still working at TJ Maxx, and I spent hours writing cover letters and sending out job applications every day. I wanted to focus on finding a job that suited me better than the proposed promotion to being a front-end coordinator that my manager had told me about. I didn’t see myself working a career in retail, nor did I want to move up the ladder.
To occupy my time, I put out a Facebook status request in May 2020 essentially offering free commissions. I wanted to practice drawing again for people, and a lot of people took me up on it! I appreciated the opportunity for practice, and I was able to bring joy to people through my art.
Things were looking up. Life at home was fairly stable, and I bought a Switch and Animal Crossing with the money I’d saved up from working at TJ Maxx. With Animal Crossing, there was something to look forward to every day, be it a new piece of furniture or an entirely new outfit. I loved…
