Chaos & Growth in 2020 for Jess—Who Is My Neighbor, Part 2
Jess, who is my neighbor, tells me, “2020 was a very chaotic year.”And just like that we make the shift from her story of moving into the house that makes her my neighbor to the story of life in that house in 2020.She continues, “I’m sure that watching as a by-stander was really confusing. You probably noticed a lot of police, a lot of fire trucks at my house for a period of time.”I nod and wait. Jess, sitting across from me at my patio table, speaks with a balance of openness and care as she relates her story, thoughtful of her family members. “My sister has epilepsy, so stress and worry are not good for her. She has seizures and stuff."I respond, "Oh, that’s scary.""Yeah. I feel like the pandemic had something to do with that because we're locked up in our houses. At least if you're smart. There are people who are going out and being irresponsible. Those aren’t smart people in my opinion. But over in our house we are being smart and we're staying home. And that caused a lot of conflict.”“With everybody home at the same time?” I ask.“Yeah. Only when you’re forced to be with them, all the time, for an extended period of time, do you really get to know them. The pandemic definitely made problems bigger than before with all the stress and all the worry. That’s in everybody's households right now.”Are all 22-year-old’s capable of such compassionate awareness? I wonder.
I'm an escapist
Jess continues. “I am an escapist. That's the Pisces in me. So when I'm uncomfortable or I'm feeling down, I feel like I need to go do something— whether it’s to be in nature, or be with my friend, or do something by myself. So, staying in the house all the time and sitting in an uncomfortable environment was really hard on me.But I appreciate 2020 because it gave me the opportunity to speak my mind to people around the civil unrest that we had to witness and about the pandemic that we are still witnessing.”Jess is the first of my neighbors to name civil unrest in her story of 2020. She continues. “Being forced to sit in that uncomfortable feeling really made me think deeply about better ways to deal instead of escaping all the time. That's not healthy.”I have to smile. “Even though you're an escapist, you realize the limits to that?”
Knocked down & made to grow
Jess nods. “Yeah, 2020 was the first year that knocked me down, but made me grow. I feel like I matured a lot in the span of the year.”Her self-awareness strikes me. I believe her. "Tell me about speaking your mind."“Sometimes I don't speak my mind because I feel like people are just going to think I'm crazy. I think deeply and I'm observant and I notice everything, but sometimes I have a hard time getting people to believe me when I say it.This seems a bit vague, so I ask, “Believe what you’re seeing? Believe what you’re saying?”“Believe how I’m feeling,” She says without hesitation. “Also," now she pauses, "I feel like I'm open-minded. Like I'm willing to consider all possibilities, not just one. So, when I meet people who can only see things this way or think about things that way, that’s kinda irritating to me. People don't like people who make them question everything. And I feel like I'm one of those people. I'm such a why person.” I interrupt her. “A why person?” Jess smiles, “Like, why? why? why? I gotta know why.” I say softly, “Yeah. Okay. Wow. I’m gonna think of you that way, Jess, a Why-person. That’s really cool.”I note aloud that I saw Jess at a couple of protest marches in 2020. We both participated. Jess smiles, “Yeah. I love that.” I observe, “So, you’re invested. You want to see things change.”
We all need each other
Jess agrees instantly, “Yeah. I really do. I'm an empath, and to see injustice like that is just not acceptable to me. We should see everybody as our neighbor whether we live right next door to them, whether we live in the same area as them. They're our neighbor because they are on the same Earth as us. We need to start loving and protecting all of our neighbors. We all need each other.” I wonder to myself what Jess is reading, hearing, seeing. What shapes her views? She keeps going. “I feel like people need to accept reality for what it is, accept agendas for what they are, and accept that there are privileges. There are privileges that are real and there are people who don't get those privileges because of the color of their skin.”I have to agree with Jess. “We saw that this week for sure,” I say. Jess and I are talking on Saturday, January 10, a few days after the insurrection at the Capitol. She nods, “Yeah, for sure. That was unacceptable.”Such clarity. No qualifiers. No commentary.
Beyond the pandemic
I ask, “Were there any other upheavals in 2020 beyond the pandemic?”“Beyond the pandemic the house was chaotic. Everyone in my family had something going on, I know I did personally. But I feel like that's life. It was just anything life had to throw at that time. But that's one thing about life: it throws you what you need. What you need to go through. What you need to grow.” Now I have to ask the wise, surprising, empath Jess, who is my neighbor, one last question. “What did the year 2020 throw at you that you needed and grew from?” Matter-of-factly Jess replies, “I got my heartbroken for the first real time. I mean I've gotten my heart broken many times before, but this was the first that I really saw how evil somebody’s spirit could be. It was confusing for me. I couldn't understand it. But I feel like I needed that because I hadn’t had a taste of that yet.”
You can't let just anybody's energy into your life
Did the lesson from her dating relationship sharpen her clarity around social and political issues? How does personal exposure to trauma impact our appreciation of kindness, our longing for honesty and trustworthiness?“After having that taste, I respect myself a lot more,” Jess tells me. “I have higher expectations for myself and what I accept in my life and what I don't. You can't let just anybody's energy into your life.”Self-described as reserved, Jess opened up and shared her energy with me, and by extension with you. Revisiting her words as I write this, I marvel again at her awareness, wisdom, and generosity. I think of Jess as a young philosopher and wonder how she and Julio would get along.
If we only ask, there is so much we can learn from each other. And when we listen, there is so much that will surprise us in one another's stories. As you read these stories for my socially engaged art practice, you participate in the project. For this I am grateful.As always, feel free to borrow any of this practice as your own. Talking to our neighbors—no sales pitch, no witnessing, no political promotion—to get to know them better = modest revolution. Thank you for being my online neighbor,
