Welcome to 2022!

Welcome to 2022! My most heartfelt wish for this new year is for respect and value for the story of every person on this planet. And this is the mission of Journall. For me, as the site’s founder, Journall is a labor of love and this piece is a love letter to you, your family, your community. It is my mission at Journall to include the truth of you and our fellow travelers from all over the world on life’s journey. The dignity of your truth, your experience is paramount to me and to the mission of Journall.

Journall seeks to end the blindspots and biases that develop across cultures and across the world. These biases form in no small part because the stories of many large groups of people aren’t included in our daily news feeds, or our history textbooks, or even in popular movies and that leads us to ignore those groups or think that they aren’t important, or even that their stories never even happened. We at Journall understand that stories of women, people of color, people in developing nations, indigenous peoples, LGBTQ people, poor people and people with disabilities are vital to historical truth. Understanding that the stories of all people all over the world are part of OUR story, makes OUR story more complete. At Journall, we LOVE all of the stories. Every single corner of this world is full of stories that are vital to a full picture of the truth and we eagerly await every story, big or small.  

My Christmas week story is that I have been quarantined with COVID. COVID does not discriminate. It includes anyone in it’s path, regardless of wealth, social status, race, ethnicity, sexual preference, any place on the planet and so it is a good example for Journall. Everyone has a story of COVID - how it affected their work, their health, their travel or social life. For 2 years I have dreaded being stricken with COVID, afraid of being one of the nearly 5,500,000 people who have died from this pandemic. But I have had vaccinations and a booster and thank goodness, my illness was not devastating. Instead, my individual COVID story was that it was like a bad cold. My daughter is a teacher in The Bronx in New York City. Before coming home for Christmas break, she waited for test results on Christmas Eve. When she got her negative results she headed home and 4 of us spent a wonderful Christmas day together. The day after Christmas, she wasn’t feeling well and tested again. This time her test was positive and that afternoon, all 4 of us, in spite of being fully vaccinated and boostered, were sick. It was that fast but was no worse for us than a weeklong cold. One week later, we are all feeling better and my daughter has returned to work. My COVID story is just one of approximately 300,000,000 worldwide. It’s not dramatic but it informs and all of my friends wanted to know what COVID was like and had lots of questions about this disease that has so changed our world. We want to hear it from each other, not just from the news. Each COVID story told helps to develop a picture of the virus and the way it has affected our world.

There are so many types of experiences that affect us all. We all have stories about work and health and school and love and family. All these stories that you share on Journall are gifts to your community as they inform and broaden our understanding of and compassion for our each other. We all want to be heard. We all want to be understood. That is a fundamental human need. Journall is here to answer that need to be heard and understood and to foster compassion for our people everywhere. I hope you will join us in our efforts in 2022 with your stories and your support for this wonderful project.

Love and all the best to you for 2022,

Jean McGavin