In all honesty, I strayed away from publishing this article. It feels like every morning I wake up to scroll through the media and find either constant workout videos or articles about people telling me what I should and should not feel / do during the COVID-19 pandemic.
I’m tired of hearing about it! I understand what is going on in the world. I understand my fears, other people’s fears, and the country’s fears. I have quite literally been inside the pandemic since my first week in Italy.
…YET, here I am, writing another article for you all to read and reflect on about COVID-19. Because for at least my generation (Gen Z wadup), this is as close to a war that we’ve ever been and I am terrified.
After returning home from Italy, I completed my 14 day self-imposed quarantine after, just to realize the rest of the world was also forced to jump into a lifestyle filled with social distancing and Netflix binges.
Hold up. This was my time to thrive?? I did my job?? I isolated myself for 2 weeks??
My abroad friends and I planned a trip to Florida for when we all successfully completed our quarantine. This was our time to take back the carefree moments that we would normally be having across Europe.
On my first night out of my personal quarantine, I called my older sister Leanna, telling her I was outside of her apartment in Boston, but I was struggling to park (parallel parking is not my strongest skill in life). She jumped into my car and immediately gave me the ‘wise sister Leanna’ look. Now, the last time I received this look was when I was dramatically crying over a past relationship where she responded with, “if you think this is heartbreak, you have a lot more coming for you..” This look was the ‘you’re about to feel some tough love kind of look’, whether you wanted it or not.
She told me that it would be selfish of me to go to Florida. She explained that I should be fulfilling my social responsibility and staying home. Evidently, I responded with stubborness and told her that I already did my job and I was ready to make GALLONS of lemonade out of lemons.
I held my stance, for about 4 more hours. Then I got a text from my friend – all bars and beaches in Fort Lauderdale were closing. I scrolled through my Instagram and saw constant reposts of #StayHome. We decided to cancel the trip.
In all honesty, if the beaches didn’t close I probably would’ve ignored my sister and thought to myself that I deserve this trip. What I do know is that we are all doing the best that we can during these times. Things change within weeks, days, literal seconds of breaking news.
Since this decision…
…Most of my friends also lost out on a large part of the abroad experience. Many of them were almost stuck under their given countries lockdown. Other friends lost a sports season, and for the seniors, their last chance to play competitively. Seniors at SMC and around the country lost their senior spring and graduation. My father may never see his mother again because the nursing homes are on lock down and we are unsure how much time my Nana has left. My sister is a Covid-19 ICU nurse and sacrifices her physical and mental health everyday to help those in need. My cousin passed away and will not have a funeral and his teenage daughter will not be able to properly say goodbye to her father…
I list these heartbreaks, fears, and experiences not in any way to point out the negativity in the world – rather I want to emphasize that every single person is being affected. By now, I am sure that anyone reading this has probably heard the same phrase that we are all being affected in different ways and deserve to mourn those things that we are missing out on (which, for the record, I completely agree on).
I think one of my biggest worries, beyond what is going on in my life, is that we are constanting blaming each other and pushing judgement on each other. If I did decide to go to Florida without receiving the tough love from my sister and paying attention to the news, I would be crucified by people over social media (which, again, rightfully so.)
Yes! You should stay home. Yes, it is safer to just stay away from people you are not living with than risking the ‘social distancing’ guideline. But, at the end of the day, it is a personal decision that has a domino effect on the rest of the world. We should be encouraging people to stay home, rather than throwing judgement and passing hostile blame on those who are not fulfilling their social responsibility.
My goal for anyone reading this article is to take a breath, and respond with kindness, rather than hostility. Try to remember that we are all doing the best that we can.
As always, control what you can control. Work hard, be kind, and do the right thing.