Writing letters to Congress made my day better

This morning, I resolved to try some of those self-care steps my therapist and I have been brainstorming.

I've always thought of self-care as "go easy on yourself." Like, not stressing out too much if I don't exercise, or eating just because it tastes good and I want to. And I still stand by those being valid!

A new idea for me, however, was that self care can take the form of a little extra effort.

For example, I made my bed! It took me less than a minute, and I felt a lot more grounded by starting out my day like that-- making my space a little more orderly.

Then, in the same vein of straightening up my space to calm down, I spent part of my free second period writing letters to Congress.

I got this letter to the editor about global COVID-19 relief published in a local newspaper last month. When when we have published media, my RESULTS group likes to print out copies and mail them to our members of Congress. You can add your own note, like "Dear _____, I am a constituent and I strongly agree with this letter," and then elaborate with a few more details on what you want them to do (signing off with your name and address, of course).

As you can see by the date on the letter, it was published over three weeks ago, so... I had been procrastinating on that quick little action for a long time. Three copies of my letter and three blank envelopes (one for each member of Congress- my Rep and my two Senators) had been lying on the floor of my room day after day, week after week, always being shoved to the side into bigger piles of clutter.

I forgot to take a picture before I mailed the letters I wrote today, but here's a very similar example!

Today, I finally got that task done! Hooray!

I ran downstairs, slapped stamps on the envelopes, and told my mom this: "I'm going to put these letters in the mail. Whatever goes wrong today, I will know that I took an action."

As it turns out, I really needed that. 

When I went to the bathroom between my fifth and sixth period Zoom classes, I got trapped in there because the door was stuck. I honestly didn't see that coming.

For the first ten minutes, it was pretty funny that I was running late to AP Physics because I was stuck in my bathroom. Only at Zoom school, am I right? My sister kindly logged on to class for me and informed my teacher of the situation. "This is so stupid," I choked out through my laughter.

Forty minutes later, though, I had disassembled the door handle (using a screwdriver Mom delivered through a small window to the outside) and I still couldn't get out. Credit cards and kitchen knives couldn't un-jam the door; even a good old-fashioned shove wouldn't budge it. "This is so stupid," I muttered.

In the end, it took my superhero mom breaking down the door with a sidekick to release me (she's a third degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do). Physics was already over, so I missed the part about solving two-dimensional collision problems. Now, I'm worried about the quiz on Friday.

On top of that, I got a sensory overload from all the rattling and crashing noises I had to hear without my usual ear protection.

All in all, not the best day. It didn't get much better from there, as some more frustrating things happened, and I'm writing this at ten at night when there's still a substantial homework load left. But I'm partly writing this to process and move on from my crappy Tuesday, and partly to share a story that's somewhat related to advocacy as a teenager in 2021.

Because, you know what? I do feel better because of the letters I wrote this morning! I know that I did something concrete to speak up about global poverty.

Whatever's going on in my weird little world of physics problem sets and hardware misadventures, I still got to be a part of a worldwide movement that's making a difference in the world.

I really love this quote from Doctor Who: "Every life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good things don't always soften the bad things, but, vice versa... the bad things don't necessarily spoil the good things or make them unimportant."

And while the clip above is in the context of time travel adventures with Vincent van Gogh, like all good Doctor Who quotes, it resonates with everyday people.

I really love that advocacy actions like writing letters give me a way to stand up for what I believe in. They are definitely a primary contributor to my pile of good things every day.