This summer has been the strangest, most eventful yet uneventful summer of my life. Living through a pandemic was something that I never thought I’d do; it was definitely the hardest challenge that I’ve had to face in my life so far.
The Summer of 2020 was supposed to be one of my best summers as I had so many plans. I was supposed to visit friends and family across the UK, go to the West |End to finally see Wicked the musical and go to Glastonbury with my sisters. Instead I ended up going back home and quarantining for four months.
During this time, I went through a rollercoaster of emotions (as I’m sure many of us did).
I started off being quite content and happy. Staying at home wasn’t an issue for me as I had lots to entertain me. Lockdown was a chance for me to do things that I didn’t normally make time for which included catching up on films and tv shows, reading, baking and exercising daily.
But, after a while of indulging in all of these things, I started to get bored. Often when I woke up, I couldn’t be bothered to do anything; watching tv for long periods of time was boring, scrolling through Netflix was boring, reading more than a few pages of a book was boring and the fact that I couldn’t see my friends and interact with them in real life made it worse.
Eventually, I got to the point where I was bored of being bored and decided to do something about it. I decided to accept the fact that Coronavirus wasn’t going to go away soon and stopped focusing on the negative aspects of it. I tried to get on with my life and do something productive. I started writing articles for my blog and for Her Campus Leeds, I started journaling as a way to express my thoughts and feelings, I also started doing online courses centred around journalism since Uni ended early and I didn’t have any set work to do.
Summer was definitely not a bed of roses, but it wasn’t all bad, I stayed connected with friends and family in different ways. Even though we couldn’t meet face-to-face, we all made a conscious effort to video call and message each other a lot more which I found comforting.
Of course, once lockdown had eased, I felt a lot better as we could then meet in person.
One thing that I learnt about myself in lockdown was that being able to spend time with my family and friends, whether that was just sitting out in the garden and chatting endlessly or going out in public, was the most important thing to me. The location or what we did wasn’t important, I just valued social interaction and I never want to not be able to see people for long periods of time again.
Looking back on it, although my summer didn’t go to plan it made me realise that I have a newfound resilience that I didn’t know that I had. I’m not afraid to go for what I want now and try new things because I know that I can overcome difficult challenges that I’m faced with.
Words By: Tamikka Reid