Summer 2020

Title

Summer 2020

Description

A brief account of how my life changed after/during quarantine. This reflection was written for Dr. Cheryl Dudasik-Wiggs' spring 2021 ENGL 1100 Foundations of College Writing course.

Coverage

Wayne County, North Carolina

Greene County, North Carolina

Creator

Anonymous

Date

2021-05

Text

Covid-19 Personal Reflection:
This is my personal reflection on Covid-19 and the impact that it had on my daily life. Looking back now it is laughable how optimistic I was at the beginning of Covid-19 and the quarantine that seemingly lasted forever. I have always been the most optimistic person of my friend group and this was no exception – I was determined to be positive for my sake and the sake of those around me.
The beginning of 2020 started off with a spontaneous trip to see the lantern festival in Cary, NC. That was supposed to be the start of many spontaneous trips for the year – or so I thought. My desire for 2020 was to live my life to the fullest. I have a tendency of being a bit of a workaholic and I had a desire to move out of my parent’s house and so working more hours was just a way of preparing and saving up to move out. I had decided however, that I wanted to have fun and live adventurously. In my grand dreams for the year it looked like as many one-day trips to places I had visited in NC as possible.
At first Covid was almost a joke to me, and to many others. All of a sudden toilet paper was out of stock and so was hand sanitizer. I was of the opinion that people needed to take a deep breath and calm down. But that seemed to be the opposite of what happened. The reality of Covid first hit me after returning from a beach trip in February, where my best-friend had felt unwell the whole day and when I dropped her off at her house she refused to let me stay because she had a fever and was scared it was Covid. This was a shock to me that I wasn’t prepared for, not that I didn’t mind being told to go home instead of stay the night like I planned, but I wasn’t used to this fearful behavior that was now surrounding being sick.
My next big hit from Covid, was the implementing of a quarantine in the state. Leading up to this point, I had been hanging out with my best friend every night after work, along with a third friend who has been sent home early from college. Going from seeing each other every single day to not seeing them at all was hard. Especially, for someone who isn’t used to being alone and deeply craves human connection and quality time with those they love. The day before the quarantine was implemented, we took one final outing to the Cliffs of the Neuse State Park, before exchanging tearful goodbyes between laughing at ourselves. It was silly to laugh – quarantine was only going to be two weeks, right?
I will admit, I didn’t do a very good job following quarantine and curfews after about a month had gone by. I truly struggled with not seeing my friends, and while I still saw many people through work, it wasn’t enough. I soon found myself slipping over to my best friends house after I got off work and on some occasions staying the night and on other nights I drove home hoping I wasn’t caught (or the law enforcement didn’t care that I was driving). I never saw anyone but my best friend, but honestly, I don’t think I would have made it through quarantine if I hadn’t allowed myself to ignore covid policy and visited her after work. My life was in upheaval and nothing was the same – except for holding on to my relationship with my friend. That was familiar, and that is what I desperately reached for.
My place of employment was at Joann Fabrics and Crafts. We were considered a necessity during this quarantine because we carried the raw materials for making masks. We were BUSY! I worked longer hours than I every had before and I ended up developing new skills that I hadn’t learned yet. Our store was located in a mall, and we received special permission from both the fire department and the mall manager to stay open and operating – even though we were not opened to the public beside curbside pickups. The first few weeks of quarantine the store blew up through curbside orders, whether it be supporting the needs of our regular customers or supplying new customers with materials for masks or materials for new hobbies they were learning to help stay sane. What happened next feels like it went by in a blur. One moment we were just fulfilling curbside orders the next our district manager told us we were going to be shipping orders out. Then we were there learning how to shop orders, create shipping labels and mail them out. There were days where we were mailing out over 200 packages a day and shipping them out all over the world. The product in our store began to leave the store at a faster pace than it was coming in and I watched shelves that I was used to being filled slowly become depleted.
Through all of this crazy – working longer hours, developing new skills at work, and not being able to go out and enjoy my life the way that I had planned – I reached for things that I knew would keep me grounded. My friends, family, and countless hours of walking. It became a regular habit of mine to take a two hour work every day after work on a local greenway, and during these walks it was very common for me to be a face time with a friend to talk to, encourage each other, and often rant about life as it was. If it wasn’t for these long walks that gave me moments to breathe and enjoy the peace of nature. If it wasn’t for my friends who never failed to check up on me or being down to face time, I don’t know what I would have done. My life was flipped upside down, and I will forever be grateful to them for keeping me grounded.
So, while my wild plans of traveling, beach trips, laughing, and loving life didn’t quite happen during the summer of 2020. I did grow ever closer with the friends that I have, and I have a relationship with them I will never let go and a debit that I will never be able to repay.
Thank you to everyone who kept me sane and grounded during Covid-19. Thank you for encouraging me and reminding me to stay positive even when I felt like screaming and crying!

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