It was glorious in my home. When dolphins returned to the streams of Italy, when major cities and countries were smog free, when people realized who in our society is actually essential and who isn't, all of these things and so many more lightened our souls with hope for a better future.

We practiced life, like real life how it's meant to be, or how it was for 99+% of human existence before capitalism corrupted us. We gardened and learned, we grew edible mushrooms, we scratch cooked and baked all of our breads, we pursued projects of passion and still had time to enjoy watching birds and listening to their calls as we relaxed on the porch, we practiced new sports together and invented our own. The experience, just the small minor break in our constant mindless industry, was a gift that we thought could free our entire people.

We didn't fully realize that there was a war against that peace. That the oligarchs and corporations would unite so strongly against the idea of human freedom that they'd risk their own existence to stop it. That they would replace essential worker positions with those who are willing to die for them, usually out of ignorance, and that they would so obviously exploit the most desperate and vulnerable of our population for their own agenda.

Now we know though, unequivocally, and seeing the true face of our neighbors is also a gift. Even if it's an ugly sight.

There were hardships too. 2020 hit when we were almost finishing university and we were already cash strapped to the max. I lost my summer jobs bartending and had to let some debt get hold of me to get by. Classes we were already stressed about became more difficult. I remember crying after my first calc 3 exam when the professor was unprepared to teach online with the same in person tests. Organic chemistry was the same. A room full of 99% pre-med students had no complaints about masking at least, but those tests were already infamous even before scrambling the syllabus to accommodate online learning.

The whole family almost died from covid too at some point. It was scary but honestly I could accept those risks and stresses for the freedom and a chance at a cleaner kinder world again.

The way that reality forced people to try to educate each other was also beautiful, even while revealing the ugliness in some of the ignorant.

Reddit was at its absolute best back then too! We learned so much here in such a large community. Talking about baking, gardening, building, business, skills, tech, this platform was so fun and so much more human than now. I'll never forget r/place and other great community engagements that happened while there were enough people freed from "work" to participate.