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 3 to 365.
A lot of people have used quarantine as a time for self-improvement. I’ve seen social media influencers, news channels, well-known authors and even my peers reflect on their time in lockdown as a good time for self improvement. I can’t say I’ve had the same experience.
Before COVID-19 brought the world crashing to a halt, I was as involved as a high schooler can be. I was on the board of a service club, working two jobs, taking rigorous courses and succeeding, and I had a decently thorough social network. Although I was tired, I felt like a confident, strong version of myself. When we initially got sent home for weeks, I was grateful for a break, but happy with where I was in life. As three weeks turned into a year, my routine shattered.
At first, it felt like everyone was in the same place with quarantine, struggling to get a rhythm, sleeping all day, adapting to a more unstructured environment. But as many of my peers started to try to get back into a productive routine, I failed miserably. For the first time, I was failing classes, and for the first time, I didn’t really care about school. I didn’t really care about anything. My life was monotonous, and while other people found motivation to create better versions of themselves and adapt, I made my bed and laid in it.
Social media began showing me people trying to improve themselves in quarantine, and so I started trying to get a routine, scheduled myself for a new job and finally finished up the schoolwork I had been avoiding. I tried. But at the end of last school year, I still felt useless and lost.
Summer was an improvement. I fell into the structure of a new job and socialized with more outdoor activities. Although I got into a routine and began to enjoy my time more, I still didn’t feel like myself. Even social interactions at work or with friends felt fake and fleeting. It was hard to see people’s lives improving without knowing how to change my own.
Honestly, I still don’t feel fully like myself. But I’m getting there. A few setbacks have definitely brought me down, but the routine I’ve adjusted to and the improvement of the country has put me on the upswing. However, one of the biggest mental changes I’ve made is the realization that it’s okay to not be okay. I spent a really long time trying to be strong and do everything I do as well as I did it before quarantine began, but sometimes that isn’t possible. I was also heavily influenced by what I saw, whether in my peers or on social media, the wonderful self advancements they had made throughout quarantine. I was not one of those people, and I’m still not. But realizing it was okay to not be the same person with the same impact made me more comfortable in embracing who I am now.
You don’t have to be the kid who taught themselves guitar with the extra free time, or the person who started hitting the gym every day, or any other person that used quarantine to create a perfect version of themselves. Covid-19 affected everyone differently, and it’s okay to just be surviving.
