Meme: Story of my Covid-19 life

Item

Title

Meme: Story of my Covid-19 life

Description

A reflection about covid based upon a meme

Format

Personal Reflection/Comentario Personal

Date

2023-02-01

Coverage

Greenville, North Carolina

extracted text

Description: This meme shows someone that is labeled as “Me”
reaching for a yellow balloon that says “Being excited for
senior year, prom, and graduation” on the top. While the bottom
picture is that of a pink blob monster labeled “Covid-19”
reaching for and grabbing “Me” to take “Me” away from the
yellow balloon.

Reflection: I chose this meme as I graduated in 2020 when Covid-19 hit and I lost all the things
that those who are seniors look forward to. It was almost like I lost the few things that made me
feel like I succeeded as I made it through high school. I know in the long run it is not a big deal
that we lost all these important milestones but when Covid-19 began it felt like I lost everything I
worked so hard for and it knocked me down a lot. In the midst of all of this my mental health
was declining more than it had prior to Covid-19. It felt like I was losing myself and losing those
I loved to a virus that shut down our world. My highschool was a private school in Virginia
therefore they did not have to follow the rules set forth my the state when it came to schooling.
We took two weeks off then went right into online schooling through the end of the year. We
didnt get to just stop learning, in fact learning became harder not just because it was now online
but because it was a trickier subject. Of course once school ended we got no graduation, not
online or in person. The biggest problem I had with the pandemic was that I was moving to the
Outer Banks once I graduated. This was a huge toll on my mental health because I had lived in
Virginia my entire life and had known those I cared for a majority of my life. When the world
shut down I lost contact with many people and it hurt immensely. I ended up moving earlier than
planned as the bridges to the Outer Banks were getting shut down to keep people out. By moving

earlier than planned I lost out on the opportunity to even see my friends for a moment before
leaving. My mother and I stayed in Virginia longer than my Father and siblings, we stayed in
order to pack everything up and move it all to our new home. I had never been so stressed and
mentally broken than I was during that time, we packed our entire house in a span of days, giving
me absolutely no opportunity to see my friends and then we moved four hours south and I never
saw some of those friends again. Once I moved, I took up coin collecting and art more than
anything, I used these hobbies to keep me busy and find a way to maybe enjoy what was left of
the life I once had. I became quite a good photographer, better than I had been before, I enjoyed
painting and drawing as well as sculpting. My parents were saints during this time as they
provided me with all the supplies neccessary to complete these hobbies. When it came to
socializing, I would facetime those back in Virginia quite a bit as I could not visit them and they
could not visit me. I also spent a lot of time with my grandma baking as she lived in the Outer
Banks prior to us moving. All and all I found things to make me happy but not without suffering
mentally to a large extent.



Item sets

Documenting COVID-19 in Eastern North Carolina

Media

Meme Assignment.pdf

This item was submitted on February 1, 2023 by [anonymous user] using the form “Contribute a Digital Item/Done un Artículo/Producto Digital” on the site “Documenting COVID-19 in Eastern North Carolina”: http://collections.ecu.edu/os/s/ecucovid19