Collected Item: “The Hardest Year Yet.”
Give your story a title.
The Hardest Year Yet.
What sort of object is this: text story, photograph, video, audio interview, screenshot, drawing, meme, etc.?
Photograph
Tell us a story; share your experience. Describe what the object or story you've uploaded says about the pandemic, and/or why what you've submitted is important to you.
March 2020
A week before the world shut down, I was enjoying spring break in the Bahamas still joking about covid 19. By the next Friday, I was preparing for the worst year of my life, and I did not know it yet. In two weeks, I lost the rest of senior year, prom, graduation, my stepmom was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disorder which made it impossible to visit my dad, faced the fear of my mom working with covid every day despite having an autoimmune disorder herself.
I could have never predicted that my entire life would fall apart so quickly. I was mad that I ever took it for granted. I dreamed my entire life what my graduation night would look like, and I never pictured graduating in our local drive-in movie theater. I carried the guilt every day of not wanting to go out or choosing to do something else instead of seeing my dad. I wished I could go back and take any opportunity given to me.
At this point, I still had hope that the nightmare would end by Easter of that year, but it seemed like it would go on forever. I was scared. I was scared that my mom would catch covid and not be able to fight it. I was scared my stepmom would not get better. Everything was so unknown I found myself fearing the future.
I spent months doing absolutely nothing every single day. I was so upset I could not even bring myself to get out of bed to eat. All I wanted to do was sleep. I could not get more bad news if I was asleep. Every morning I woke up I felt like there was just more bad news and I honestly did not want to know what it was anymore. Waking up every day to more life-altering news with no end in sight was exhausting.
I now believe that this has forever changed my life in both ways. I do not take things for granted anymore because I quickly learned how quickly they can be taken away. I have learned to always look for the light at the end of the tunnel because even if it feels like it will never end it will. The most important thing I learned was that life is like a wave, there are highs and lows, but you need to learn how to rise again.
I have included a picture of the walking trail in my area. This trail was an escape from the scares of the world. I would often take long walks on this trail to calm the anxieties of the future. It was a chance to leave the house and almost forget what was happening in the world.
A week before the world shut down, I was enjoying spring break in the Bahamas still joking about covid 19. By the next Friday, I was preparing for the worst year of my life, and I did not know it yet. In two weeks, I lost the rest of senior year, prom, graduation, my stepmom was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disorder which made it impossible to visit my dad, faced the fear of my mom working with covid every day despite having an autoimmune disorder herself.
I could have never predicted that my entire life would fall apart so quickly. I was mad that I ever took it for granted. I dreamed my entire life what my graduation night would look like, and I never pictured graduating in our local drive-in movie theater. I carried the guilt every day of not wanting to go out or choosing to do something else instead of seeing my dad. I wished I could go back and take any opportunity given to me.
At this point, I still had hope that the nightmare would end by Easter of that year, but it seemed like it would go on forever. I was scared. I was scared that my mom would catch covid and not be able to fight it. I was scared my stepmom would not get better. Everything was so unknown I found myself fearing the future.
I spent months doing absolutely nothing every single day. I was so upset I could not even bring myself to get out of bed to eat. All I wanted to do was sleep. I could not get more bad news if I was asleep. Every morning I woke up I felt like there was just more bad news and I honestly did not want to know what it was anymore. Waking up every day to more life-altering news with no end in sight was exhausting.
I now believe that this has forever changed my life in both ways. I do not take things for granted anymore because I quickly learned how quickly they can be taken away. I have learned to always look for the light at the end of the tunnel because even if it feels like it will never end it will. The most important thing I learned was that life is like a wave, there are highs and lows, but you need to learn how to rise again.
I have included a picture of the walking trail in my area. This trail was an escape from the scares of the world. I would often take long walks on this trail to calm the anxieties of the future. It was a chance to leave the house and almost forget what was happening in the world.
Use one-word hashtags (separated by commas) to describe your story. For example: Where did it originate? How does this object make you feel? How does this object relate to the pandemic?
#DUQstories #mentalhealth
Who originally created this object? (If you created this object, such as photo, then put "self" here.)
self
Give this story a date.
2020-03-01