The weather is getting nicer and the morale is getting higher. Slowly, at least. As it gets more tolerable outside, I find that I’m having a much easier time acclimating to quarantine. When I can do things like ride bike, lay outside, or just take a walk, it doesn’t feel as much like I’m trapped. And although this seems to be the case for most people in town, I still feel some sense of dread. There’s the usual joy for spring, but it’s followed by an underlying feeling of fear. Everybody is enjoying their time outside, but it feels like we shouldn’t be. It’s a hard situation because ideally, everybody should be keeping their distance completely and only communicating with who they live with, but realistically that’s not human nature. We’re beings of social nature, and when we have the opportunity to bask and live surrounded by each other, we take it. I’ve seen a few friends and I’ve seen many other people in small groups. It’s a hard dilemma because you wonder whether or not you’re being a bad person or irresponsible, which both may be partially true -- but when you’ve been alone and trapped for so long it feels like a small escape from all of the chaos around us. As quarantine gets longer, it feels like it has become less about trying to escape it or make it stop, and more about how I can make the most of whatever I can get. It’s a hard time and whether it’s an anxiety of getting the virus or the blues of isolation, I’ve felt pretty off this entire time. Being outside helps that, though. I realize that it’s a temporary fix to my problems and that I’ll have to confront the real situation of the world eventually, but that’s okay. I’ve been dealing with that for nearly two months now in the grand scheme of things. As long as I can find some time every day to step outside and get away from the chaos. Even if it’s just for five or ten minutes each day, that’s okay. I’ll just dream up the next time I can step back out there and escape it all.
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Four weeks. It has been four weeks since school was cancelled. Four weeks and it feels like everything has happened but nothing has changed. It keeps getting nicer out, which has helped, but it still feels like I can’t do much considering all of the guidelines in place. I’ve started listening to more podcasts. To push the days forward, I suppose. I’ve also been watching much more TV. I guess it just seems like the longer this goes on, the more I realize I’m not simply going to be able to just wait this out. It feels like I’m at the point where I’ll have to start getting involved in newer hobbies because this is going to become my life longer than I want it to. My family life felt like it was devolving for a moment, but it’s seemed to have stabilized since then. There was lots of fighting this week, but it’s simmered down. If I’m being honest, I’m having trouble even finishing this blog. So little has happened and I feel like I’m typing the same thing I’ve been typing last week and the week before that. I’m sure that feeling is only going to get worse in the coming weeks. There’s no way we’re going back to school and those who think we are, I think they’re properly off their rocker. It seems now at this point like summer is going to get cancelled as well. I was very excited for my summer before college, and I still am, but it is looking more and more like I’ll have to really readjust and alter those plans. I was planning on going on a lot of trips and concerts and events, but my summer might have to be more Moorhead-centric, which is alright I suppose if I’ll have the people I care about. Right now I’m just bored. Really bored without anything to do. Guess I better start my other homework now.
Easter came and Easter went. Like a small fiber in the grand scheme of time, it flew by as all things inevitably do. It didn’t feel much like Easter, but my mom did what she could. We had ribs, pie, and did a little egg hunt in my house. But besides that, it felt like another day in the never-ending slums of quarantine. I’m not sure how recent this news is, but our state’s shelter-in-place that was originally set for two weeks has been extended a month. I knew it would happen, but it’s still hard to wrap my head around the prospect of these shenanigans going on much longer than it already has. Yesterday Keegan texted a group chat we were in and said that his Dad thought he had caught the virus. He said he just had a sore throat and was getting headaches, which didn’t seem to match the symptoms for the virus. He later updated us and said his dad didn’t think he had it anymore. By the time he gave us that update, though, I was already wondering what it will be like when someone I do know gets the virus. It feels like it will inevitably happen at this rate and I don’t know exactly how I’m going to be able to prepare myself for that. In terms of everything else, I suppose I’m holding up. I started working out more and meditating when quarantine began, but my interest and motivation have dropped to about zero since then. I worked out yesterday but dropped meditating completely. I’m going to try to do both again today after I’m done with my school work. It seems to slowly be getting nicer out, but it’s hard to say when it sleets/hails/snows again every three days. The doctors and scientists keep saying that “This week is going to be the peak week for our country” but then it just keeps getting worse or the “peak week” just gets pushed to the next week. I wonder where we go from here in many ways, but more than anything I’m hoping that we just figure out exactly what we need to do and start doing such as soon as possible.
Heading into week two (technically week four), I wasn’t sure of what to expect. Would it be different? Would it be all the same? Probably the same. And for the most part, it was. As my week began, it seemed like the shifting focus in the news was the fact that the U.S. was getting closer to their peak of coronavirus cases, which is expected sometime in April. Although I’ve heard Minnesota wouldn’t be getting its peak until July or August, my mom has decided to strike down the iron hammer. I like to think I’ve been pretty good with social distancing. I was keeping in contact with a close circle outside of my house, but I suppose there were a few loose ends in that circle (Dexter, who was in New York, and Karine, who works regularly at Starbucks). It seemed like Dexter was my mom’s tipping point. After the big snowfall we had a few days ago, I was cleaning the ice outside my car when my mom confronted me. She was frustrated with my actions and felt that I was putting my household in danger. Understanding where she was coming from, I begrudgingly agreed to her wishes, which included me not being able to leave the house at all for the undisclosed future, except of course when she wants me to run and get her errands. Which is totally hypocritical, but that’s life I suppose. As lockdown gets tighter throughout the country, the same occurs right under my roof. Guess I’m stuck playing more Animal Crossing, so I can’t complain too much. As the end of the school year inches closer and closer, though, I do begin to wonder if I’ll miss any or all of the things I’m telling myself is fine being over. As the days and weeks unfold, I guess the insanity of quarantine will make me confront all of my truths, as I’ll be far too bored not to. I guess I’m just hoping that even if this virus manages to take my senior year away, I’ll still have some semblance of an exciting and new journey into college. I can’t even think about that, though. The idea of “normal” life is becoming more and more foreign with each day that passes.
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Taylor QualeyA high school senior from Moorhead, Minnesota going through a worldwide pandemic ArchivesCategories |