Unpredictable. The hardest part about this COVID-19 pandemic is that it was unpredictable. Of course, we knew little bits of information regarding the virus, but overall, it was something out of our control. I could not have predicted that Wednesday, March 4th was going to be my last track meet. I could not have predicted that Friday, March 6th was going to be my last time seeing my friends at school. I could not predict that Sunday, March 8th was going to be our last time having our regular church service. It was all unpredictable!
I could tell you that I always was the most optimistic person as this situation gained seriousness, but I would be lying. During spring break, I went through a period of denial. I told myself, “It’s okay, those cases are in other countries” “It’s fine, that case is in another state” “It’s not as bad as people say, it’ll be over soon”. I was not aware that with every thought, the coronavirus would be escalating and was soon in my state and then my town.
Once school started getting pushed back, I began to fear the end of our track season, not having our senior ditch day, senior prom, senior trip and other things that we planned to do during this last quarter. I feared that everything we worked so hard for would be stripped right from our hands. And that fear soon turned into anger. I can honestly say that I was very upset. Being our class president, I knew how much time and energy was put into fundraising for our senior trip, and being in StucCo, I knew how excited we were about our prom. Everything just seemed to be crumbling before my eyes.
Before long, schoolwork was starting to be assigned and adjustments had to be made. Let’s just say that there is a reason why I am not homeschooled! It was a huge change from having a specific time where you must be in a certain class working on a specific thing to having to wake up and do it all on your own and at whatever time. I have always been on top of work and never procrastinated. In fact, I never wanted to have homework at home, so I would try to finish it during school, so having to shift from having little to no homework to 100% of my assignments being done at home seemed impossible. Of course, I was wrong. Self-motivation soon began to kick in and I began to get back on track with my work, which wasn’t easy at first. As work began to increase, so did my exhaustion. I soon realized that without track practice, I was not getting in daily exercise and that needed to change. Me and my twin, Diamond, soon came up with a routine to wake up, workout, shower, eat breakfast, then work on our assignments until 1pm. This allowed us to formulate our own schedule, just as we would for school.
Though this state of quarantine has taken a lot from me and other seniors and students in general, it has had its positive impacts. Learning to create a schedule for my day is a skill that I can take into college and into my future life as a whole. I’ve gotten to work on different hobbies like writing music and drawing, which I had limited time to do when I was in school. In addition, this pandemic has brought people together. There was a page made on Instagram to unite all of the seniors across our state and that allowed me to meet amazing people that are going through the same thing! Me and my family also grew very close and have created many memories together. COVID-19 has taught me to overlook the negatives and focus on the positives and now I am the greatest version of myself!
