Editor’s note: I drafted this post on 9/8/20 as basically a free-form journal entry. I was trying to write for my blog, but needed to externalize these feelings before anything else would come out. The flow is how most of my journal entries come out: beginning with strife, and ending with peace and gratitude. I am so deeply grateful for journaling.

On moving to Hawaii 

We’ve now been in Hawaii for over three weeks, and officially out of quarantine for one. It’s been more challenging than I’d imagined. When we first decided to move to Hawaii, it was I who convinced Tyler of the reasons to come. The weather and the affordability and my family is there (or will be) and COVID basically isn’t; these were my top reasons. I recognized from the start that we wouldn't have much of a community outside of my immediate family members, but we figured there would be plenty of opportunities to make friends by way of simply being out and about on the island. 

Since our arrival, two of the four reasons to move here are not panning out, and it’s exacerbating the lack of community substantially. A week after pulling the trigger on buying our flights to Hawaii and putting in a 30 day notice on our apartments, the case count started climbing in Hawaii. And climbing. And climbing. It’s maybe sort of started to stop in the last few days, and that’s only because within a week of our arrival on Oahu, the island re-entered a highly-restrictive two-week stay at home order, reminiscent of those instated in March of this year, at the beginning of the pandemic. 

For us, and the residents of Hawaii, this means no leaving the house for anything but food, exercise, and essential work. No sitting on the beach or walking in the parks. No hiking, no outdoor dining, no gatherings of any kind, indoor or outdoor. After volunteering ourselves for the painful two-week quarantine, we were so disappointed to have the state enter a sort of quarantine themselves. 

We’re relieved that we can now at least drive to buy groceries or pop into Target for a cookbook and a speaker. It’s the little things that can make homelife more fun and fulfilling. We can also finally go on walks and jogs and play in the ocean. We’ve already swum twice in the clear waters of an empty Waikiki Beach and kayaked on Kaneohe Bay. The appreciation I feel for these simple abilities is monumental. 

But I’m struggling to feel pure, unadulterated contentment, which has been the primary motivator of my mental health practice for over five years now. I just want to feel content. “Happy” is a bit too loaded, overly aspirational, of a term. “Well” is a little too close to fine. I want to feel grateful and present most of the time. And you’d think in a gorgeous home on a beautiful island, that contentment would be more accessible than ever. And in ways, my quality of life is higher here than in SF. I have so much more space and light in my grandparent’s house. I am certainly no longer vitamin D deficient, and having traded trash cans in an alleyway for a sparkling bay view is certainly doing wonders for my brain. 

Still, I’m missing my community, my people. Until the move to Hawaii, I’d been living with one best friend or another for over 9 years now, never going more than a few days without their presence, communion, laughter and support. Yes, I have an incredible partner and a wonderful job and my health and I’m saving money and reading so many books, all of which I’m endlessly grateful for. But when one part of your wheel is severely off, like mine is when it comes to friendship and community, it throws off the entire cart. 

On friendship

I love the word communion to describe what I get from my friendships. It means, “the sharing or exchanging of intimate thoughts and feelings, especially when the exchange is on a mental or spiritual level.” My friendships have brought me this so acutely over the last 9 years; I truly believe I have been blessed with one of the most spiritually and intellectually beautiful sisterhoods of friendships in my life. Nothing - nothing! - makes me happier than meeting up with one or two close girl friends, pouring a glass of wine, and getting deep about our thoughts and feelings about the world. 

I have always felt so seen in those moments, so understood and appreciated for my core character. And in return, I’ve marveled at their humanity, their abundance of love or curiosity or thoughtfulness. The way every single one of my friends wants to be a good friend and daughter and citizen of the world. I’m moved by their desire to do good and affect change and prove themselves in their various passions. And I’m consistently held and nurtured by their kindness and compassion for my struggles, their cheers and joy for my successes. 

When I tell people I was in a sorority in college, they often think of one thing: catty, bratty girls fighting for some invisible position at the top of the hierarchy. My experience was nothing like that. I walked away from college with the blessing of true friendship. Women who motivate and inspire me, who make space for me and see me for my strengths, who gently nudge me around my weaknesses and provide me with enough laughter to make the worries of the world melt away. 

I hope you feel this way about your friendships. You - everyone - deserves a love like this. A sisterhood of eternal warmth. It’s hard to be a human in this world, harder yet in a global pandemic. And harder now that my connection to my female friends, a connection at the deepest level of my humanity, has been compromised.

On patience & gratitude 

I will have to be patient here in Hawaii, and hopeful. Hopeful that this current COVID scare will be enough to elicit a powerful and effective response from the government and community. Hopeful that I will soon be able to both venture out to build a new community and invite my old community to join me here for some time.

I will also need to be present and grateful. It is the only way. I am so scared of what the future brings. It feels like everything that can go wrong right now will. That being said, I know that I am an objectively lucky human being. Will I be able to live out my Hawaiian pandemic dreams? Will I continue to find success at work, amid the disconnection of the pandemic? Will I finally work up the courage and conviction to make my blog a legitimate asset? These are important questions to my positive psychology quest, but to let them affect my mood is an affront to the wealth of blessings I dwell in every day. 

I am fed, clothed, housed, employed, and loved. I have all that and so much more. I may not have the wifi and friends and freedom that I’m used to, but I’m rich in other ways. I get to experience it all. Amid a backdrop of both joy and pain, I am just here. I will always be here. And I can always be happy to be alive, happy to have what I have. I hope you can take some solace in the same.