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When President Joe Biden addressed the Original melanin Friends American Flag Shirt in addition I really love this nation on March 11, the one-year anniversary of the coronavirus outbreak officially being declared a pandemic, I watched. When he painted the picture of a normal-ish July Fourth celebration on the national horizon, I had a reaction I certainly could not have predicted: I panicked.Biden described an Independence Day barbecue scene, a day spent in the backyard with close family and friends. Pre-pandemic me would have loved that thought; it would have sounded like the perfect summer celebration—hamburgers and sparklers and laughter and loved ones. Mid-pandemic me, however, was flooded with worry: Will it be safe? Do we wear masks? Shake hands? Hug? How many times do I kiss someone on the cheek when I greet them? Do we share chips out of the same bowl? And what do I do when I don’t want to be there anymore? How do I leave?I will not miss the virus. None of us will. I will not miss the stress and the fear and the sadness, the loneliness, the isolation. I will not miss the constant feeling of deep, deep loss and unending worry. But crawling out of our safety shelters into this bright new world feels scary right now; the After Times are not too far out of reach, but we don’t have a clear sense of what they will look like. They could be the Roaring Twenties, or they could be muted and masked up. The uncertainty is unsettling. While I sat safely on my couch watching the president describe our future, the word that flashed neon in my mind was change. We’ve changed so much this year, I thought. I can’t do it again.I floated the idea of post-pandemic anxiety on my social-media pages: “Do you feel it too?” I asked my followers, and my timelines and DMs were flooded with replies. “I got sober last year and am worried about the pressure to drink,” one follower told me. “This time clarified a lot of relationships that I don’t think I need anymore and facing that gives me the heebie-jeebies,” wrote another. “The pandemic has been a bit of a security blanket,” wrote another, mentioning her status as single. “I’m struggling with a lot of intrusive thoughts about when the pandemic ends. What if it’s safe to date and meet people organically and I’m still single? What will be my excuse then? I’m worried that I’m telling myself I’m alone because everyone is right now—but what if people stop being alone and I’m still here?” Scrolling through the replies, it became clear that this feeling of unease was inevitable. We’ve been through so much collectively this year, but we’ve also been through so much alone. How could we ever have expected to pick up where we left off? It’s probably a sign of growth that many of us don’t even want to.How could we ever have expected to pick up where we left off? It’s probably a sign of growth that many of us don’t even want to.“An analogy I’ve been using with patients and audiences around the world is reentry from war. Although coming home is eagerly awaited by soldiers and families, the transition back to civil life is typically quite challenging. In fact, 4 out of 10 recent veterans report coming back from war to be difficult,” says Luana Marques, associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Already the pandemic has taken a grave toll on our collective mental health, with a reported 40% of Americans struggling.“For many people, adjusting to pandemic life took a significant toll mentally and physically. And, just as the new routines become familiar and accepted, new changes are on the horizon,” adds Carle Marie Manly, Ph.D., clinical psychologist and author of Joy from Fear. “There is not a clear pandemic end date, and the uncertainty can bring an onslaught of new anxiety. While the end of the pandemic is good news, many people have found a certain comfort in their pandemic lifestyle; letting go of the upsides of a more inward-turned world certainly can be upsetting and anxiety inducing.”There is also the reality that for many of us, reentry will mean a deep reckoning with all the damage that’s been done. “Now is when we really face our losses. A job you’ll never go back to. People who’ve passed away, and you knew that, but now you’ll be in the world without them,” says Aimee Daramus, Psy.D., a clinical psychologist. “Even something like the closing of a favorite restaurant that’s part of your emotional connection to friends and family. The world seems much more uncertain than it did pre-pandemic.”Marques also highlighted the reality of loss. “Adjusting to a post-pandemic era may be particularly challenging for individuals who have lost a loved one, served on the front lines, or experienced significant mental-health symptoms during the pandemic. In the United States, these groups could make up nearly half the population.”The reality, as I’ve come to understand it, is that reentry will be bumpy, and we need to take care of ourselves and be generous and patient with one another. “The busy, worry-oriented human mind will want to look into the future to anticipate all the possibilities—what might go wrong—and this causes both stress and anxiety when no identifiable threat or solution exists,” says Manly. “When the unproductive, busy mind becomes stuck in anxiety and worry, stop to refocus and shift attention to the present by exercising, journaling, meditating, talking with friends, or engaging in a creative activity. Over time, the overactive brain can be trained to let go of the worried, anxious states and enjoy increased calm-inducing, nonreactive moments of quiet.”The future is uncertain, and for many of us (like me), that means worry follows next. This year has been filled with a devastating amount of bad, but as there always is, there has also been good. For me the good has been spending time, lots of time, with my husband; reevaluating what I want to do professionally; investing in healthy and meaningful friendships and relationships; and learning to value and respect my own boundaries. With change on the horizon, I worry about losing all that. I certainly don’t want to relive this year, but I don’t necessarily want to return to the patterns and priorities I had before it either.Stepping into this new, as-yet-to-be-defined, post-pandemic society, we will enter as new versions of ourselves. Because of pandemic rules, many people in our lives probably haven’t seen these new versions of us yet, at least not without the barrier of a screen. This year of change and trauma will not disappear when the pandemic ends, and bringing the lessons and hardships of it into the future will just be a part of the journey. Eventually the After Times will just be the now—and the now can always be managed far better than the fear of it.

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I think about my life in the Original melanin Friends American Flag Shirt in addition I really love this pandemic era from a number of different vantage points. As a New Yorker, I still take a moment at 7 p.m. to reflect on how we cheered our essential workers last spring, a bright memory in an otherwise dark year. As a business owner who has led my skin-care company, Peach & Lily, through difficult and uncertain times, I’m proud of my team for rising to the challenge and emerging stronger than before. As an almost first-time mom, I consider how a pandemic pregnancy is inconvenient on good days and isolating on bad ones, while also appreciating that remote work means more time to prepare for this life-changing event.But as an Asian American, the only thing I can think about right now is why I’m afraid to leave my apartment.Violent hate crimes against the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community have been dramatically rising over the last year. Our most vulnerable—the elderly, women, and children—are being targeted. Just over the past week in New York City, an elderly man was bloodied on the subway, and another punched in the face on the Lower East Side; a woman was thrown to the ground in Midtown, another was hit in the face with a metal pipe on the Lower East Side, and a third was punched repeatedly after attending a protest against Asian hate with her daughter in Union Square. On Monday, a 65-year-old woman was kicked and stomped on the sidewalk a block from the apartment I left at the end of January. These attacks echo many others in New York and across the country, including the devastating shootings in Atlanta which left eight dead, including six Asian women.According to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, anti-Asian hate crimes increased by 149% from 2019 to 2020, while StopAAPIHate.org has catalogued more than 3,800 racist incidents since March 2020, a shocking number that the organization also describes as “massively underreported.” But let’s be clear: Anti-Asian racism and violence isn’t new. It emerged in the 1800s, when large numbers of Asian immigrants first started to arrive in the U.S., and it sadly persists today. Asian Americans continue to face racist aggressions and microaggressions. I can’t tell you how many times I have been accosted and harassed with racial slurs, or made to feel like a foreigner in my own country. Since the pandemic began last March, accompanied by racist descriptions like “Kung Flu,” the floodgates of hate and violence have opened even wider. For the first time after decades of living in New York, I’m afraid to go outside alone. I’m Korean, a woman, and a target. For most Americans, citizenship is a default setting, delivered at birth. Only a small number of citizens—primarily judges, elected officials, military, and law enforcement personnel—must proactively swear an oath to the Constitution of the United States. This group currently constitutes about 1% of the total population of America, roughly 3 million people. But there is another, larger group—about 20 million people in total—that is required to swear this same oath, to actively commit to being an American: naturalized citizens.I became a naturalized citizen in my 20s. I remember the day I swore my own oath: to renounce my allegiance to Korea, to support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States; to bear arms on behalf of the United States when required; to perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required; to perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required.My first language is Korean. I dream in Korean. My birth name, Jee Hae, is Korean. In taking that oath, I was, in effect, turning away from the land of my birth and my youth, the home of my parents, my grandparents, and my entire extended family. But America is my country now. And not just for the fun stuff. I made a commitment—a solemn vow—to support and defend the Constitution, to fight for the United States if called upon. I also made a commitment, like so many other immigrants, naturalized or not, to work hard to build a life here, to contribute to society and to the economy. I started my business here. I continue to create jobs here. I was married here. I belong here. This is my home.But home—for me, and for so many other Asians—doesn’t feel safe anymore, and over the past few weeks, my conversations with others in the AAPI community have evolved. While we continue to fight for awareness to drive real change and action around the epidemic of violence against Asians, these days we also spend time talking about “tactics”—the practical and often maddening contortions we must contemplate to protect ourselves. Should I try to disguise myself? Who can I ask to escort me to the grocery store? What can I carry to defend myself? How can I help protect others?We are also struggling to manage our own sense of isolation, anger, and despair. After a tragic year, with so much death and suffering from the pandemic, many non-Asians are looking forward to vaccines, spring, and a return to life as usual. But for many Asians, our quarantine continues, alongside a daily drumbeat of brutal hate crimes against our community. As I count down the weeks to my due date, I’m confronting a reality I never could have imagined: Is it safe for my parents to visit their grandson? Will it be possible for me to take him for a walk in the park? My Korean face puts my little boy in danger. In New York City. In America.The roots of hate and racism will not disappear overnight. But there are steps we can all take to help stop Asian hate. Words matter. Racist rhetoric that baselessly scapegoats the AAPI community for the coronavirus pandemic is dangerous and must be rejected. Support matters. Reach out to your AAPI coworkers, employees, and friends. They are not okay right now. And if you witness an attack of any kind, please help. A crushing part of anti-Asian hate crimes is that many bystanders do not stand up for the victims, while silence after such attacks reinforces the isolation and fear felt by so many Asians in this country—and signals that this kind of intimidation and violence is acceptable here. Bystander intervention trainings can be accessed quickly and easily online, and are great tools for learning how to safely intervene and support a victim of an anti-Asian attack. Donations matter. If you are able, consider contributing to the Stop Asian Hate master fund, which allocates money to vetted grassroots organizations across the country working to track and prevent anti-Asian hate crimes and support victims.Much like the deadly virus that has gripped the world over the last year, the contagion of hate can take root quickly and viciously. But looki