Austin Snowmageddon Reflection and Experience

John Berry
9 min readFeb 23, 2021

Last week was rough to say the least. For those that don’t know I am located in Austin, TX, and we were hit with a record snowstorm last week. Yes. SNOW in Texas. We see it every couple of years, but nothing like this. Waking up today and trying to get back in to the swing of things has been really hard. Instead of diving straight back into work, I felt I needed to externalize a few things on my mind as a way to start processing and moving forward. I’ll start off with some reflections and end with my personal experience. Also I have provided some resources at the end for those who want to help or need help.

Reflections:

  1. We just went through some T R A U M A. Even if you have water and electricity and things feel back to “normal”, your body could still be in fight or flight mode. Be gentle with yourself, take the time that you need to heal. If you feel foggy headed, scatter brained, not able to focus, tired, sad, or confused, know that you are not alone. Our bodies are still going to be recovering from this for awhile and that is perfectly normal. Talk to your partner, reach out to friends, reach out to your manager and express how you feel. Do not think you are supposed to return to life as normal because it’s Monday. Most of us were quite literally fighting for our lives last week.
  2. All of these feelings are exacerbated by the fact that we are in a pandemic. This pandemic has forced us to be in our homes more than ever. Our homes have become a place of not only life and…

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John Berry

Sometimes writing, sometimes designing, but always growing exploring and discovering. Product Designer @Facebook www.johnberry.design