I want to do my best to keep this brief. For the first time this week, COVID-19 was the last thing on my mind. This week’s incident resulting in the death of George Floyd is devastating. And having to already deal with a pandemic and feeling like we are rolling backwards from the progress we’ve made on racism in this country is exhausting for everyone. Every time one of these deaths occurs, I find myself struggling with words. I know even after this post gets published, I’m going to go back and forth on it wishing I had said something differently or more.

There are many ways for Asian Americans to stand with African Americans as allies. I’m sure all of you are seeing these resources within your social media accounts right now. I urge you to take the time and read through each one. This is important and doesn’t warrant you skipping by it. Because I have this platform, it doesn’t feel right to not address it. It’s not business as usual; nothing about 2020 is normal. To not acknowledge what is going on in this country as a problem would signal that it doesn’t impact me.

I cannot speak for everyone and I recognize that not everyone is as comfortable with social media as I am. There are two points I want to say here: if you yourself are not a social media regular and don’t feel comfortable posting anything regarding the matter, that is okay. Know that there are other ways to become involved and informed and you can do this behind the scenes. Secondly, sharing related posts on social media and flooding your stories doesn’t do any good if you yourself are not taking action. What you are doing is spreading awareness, but take it a step further. Make those shares count for something.

It’s not often that we get these periods of time where we can focus entirely on Yow Yow! Getting alone time with the blog only happens when I’m in between jobs or the holidays. Since we’ve been in quarantine, I’ve written more than I would have, but not to the level that I was expecting for myself. To be honest, I thought that I would be a content machine on Yow Yow! and that hasn’t been the case. I’ve boiled this down to a couple of reasons. First, my content is being spread between here, Instagram and TikTok. Secondly, we’re in a pandemic and that just changes the entire game.

At the start of quarantine, I read many articles about how people should be spending their time. Long story short, it’s okay if you don’t pick up a skill, create a side hustle, or read a gazillion books during this time. Our focus isn’t all there. The content that we’d normally write has shifted a bit. Obviously it no longer makes sense for me to talk about shopping the same way we did before. Since I’m not going outside as much, we don’t have outfit posts. There was also the internal struggle I had with myself about how much non-covid-19 related content to post vs. covid-19 related.

We are however many weeks into this quarantine by now and while I haven’t figured it out entirely, there is something that I’m sure of. Yow Yow! gives me a voice on this platform like none other. The way I write here is different from any other platform that I use. It may have taken me 11 years to acknowledge that, but I am grateful to still have this. And as fulfilled as I am writing this blog, it is still not at that point that I would give up my career for it. Having these two sides of my life doesn’t come without complexities. Many bloggers I follow have had to make that decision for themselves in the past. Creating content on a daily basis isn’t as easy as it looks!

The answer to what you build next in life isn’t always the gift of time. Instead, forgive yourself if you choose to do nothing with this time you’ve been given. This pause is a great opportunity to take care of yourself, relax, and get the sleep you’ve been wanting to catch up on.