March 13 marks one year since East Chapel Hill High School closed due to COVID-19. This week we’ll post columns from five students reflecting on the past year. This is 2 to 365.
“We need 4 hugs a day for survival. We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth.” — Virginia Satir
My freshman year of high school, I learned about this thing called the five love languages. My group all took the test, and physical touch came in second for me as a way in which I receive and give love in all the relationships I hold. That Virginia Satir quote was paired with it, and we all went around hugging people until we reached 12. Now, I love to try to identify people’s love languages as I get closer to them, so I can show them love in a way I know they’ll receive it.
If I feel confident in my guess, I’ll even tell them. I recently falsely accused a friend who I’ve only become close with during the pandemic of having words of affirmation as their top love language, only to find out they considered their top to be physical touch (something I’d obviously not know because… how could I?). This sent me down a spiral of self-reflection, as I was forced to confront how I too have had to adapt to a lack of physical touch this past year.
Combine a grandma over the age of 80 you see frequently with a germaphobe mother, and you have a ripe combination for a fully isolated girl in a pandemic. In the beginnings of quarantine, this isolation even proved damaging as I took out my bitterness over my own situation on my friends who didn’t quarantine quite as strictly, holding myself to be some paragon of good COVID-19 behavior. Now I recognize that just because I can’t have a “bubble” doesn’t mean that others who do are being unsafe. That bitterness dissipated further when I was reminded of how fortunate I am that my largest negative from the pandemic was just social isolation, rather than loss of security or health risks to my immediate family.
Since that mindset switch, I’ve instead sought to maintain relationships without the close physical proximity I’m used to valuing so much. I’ve probably sent more letters to friends through the mail this past year than I’ve sent in my entire life up to this point. I turned 17 March 31, celebrating with a FaceTime with my friends, and will now turn 18 still in quarantine. Many of the people I call on my birthday this year will be the same, while others will be new, and some I probably won’t even text. I consider myself a master of yard chats and trunk circles, and have done every possible combination of the virtual social gatherings. In a way, this lifestyle has become a new constant to me.
Last April, I wrote a column called “Quarantine: A needed break from routine” where I reflected on how I felt relief by being removed from the rat-race that was my life at that point. Katie of last April was naive, but still right in a way. Since this is the situation I’m stuck in, I might as well use it how I did: to re-establish my priorities and strengthen my connection to myself. It’s all too easy for me to write this past year off as a wasted year or one spent waiting for the world to keep moving forward and ignore all the ways in which life continues on.
I can list all the things I haven’t done: hugged someone outside of my family, had a friend over to my house, driven in their car, eaten in a restaurant or been inside my high school. Those were all things I once considered to be staples of my lifestyle, if not critical to who I am as a person. But I can also list all the things I have done: spent time with myself, spent time with my family, kept my community safe and connected with people who truly make me feel accepted.
Even if your list of “have done” is shorter or different, you’ve made it through this year. It is so bizarre attempting to measure accomplishments in a time like this, or even feeling that you had to have spent this year well for it to count. Many days it felt like I was just surviving, rather than living, but that in itself fundamentally is an accomplishment. And even though my biggest “haven’t done” is the 12 hugs a day I need for growth, I feel so much more gratitude for all of the things I’m able to continue doing.
They always say you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone, and they were right. Never could I have guessed that I’d spend a year missing so many things. However, that large loss has also made me be able to safely say that I do know what I’ve got before it’s gone. I see posts talking about “take me back to the beginning of quarantine!!” where they reminisce on how “good” life was back then and they didn’t appreciate it. I’ve never felt that, because this year has given me the ability to recognize that whatever situation I’m in is the best it can be right now and to feel appreciation for whatever I do have in the moment. And, that when this is all over, I’m shooting for 16 hugs a day.
I love Katie Clark with my whole heart. This is so beautifully written, it brought me to tears.