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Collected Item: “The Time to Grow is Now”

Give your story a title.

The Time to Grow is Now

What sort of object is this: text story, photograph, video, audio interview, screenshot, drawing, meme, etc.?

text

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.

2020 was a year that started with a struggle. On December 6th, 2019, my childhood best friend, Collin, died from a drug overdose. He was the first person that was my friend in this world. 3 days before my 21st birthday, he was gone. I have never grieved a person like this in my life. The pain stuck with me like nothing I had experienced. No matter where I was or what I was doing, I could only think of Collin. In February, right before everything shut down, my friend Jeff and I went to New York City. On Collin's birthday, we went to a drag show, and I could feel the world breaking under my feet knowing he couldn't be there. During quarantine, he was always on my mind. I was stuck in a house with 4 other 21-year-olds for months on end. It was suffocating. Processing trauma and grief in a world without distractions as been one of the hardest challenges of my life. I recently moved back to my hometown where I am surrounded by memories of Collin and other past traumas. It is especially difficult to process traumas in a new place during a pandemic. A hug has never felt so cherished. Community has never felt closer but also so far apart. I am grateful for the friends I see and people I am close to in a new way. While the world can feel like its crumbling, there is always a smile to be had. I can now smile when I pass places I went with Collin as a kid. The world slowing down has made sit with these feelings in a way I never could before. I had so much time to feel everything. Collin's name makes me smile and I feel so blessed to have known him. COVID made my world slow down enough to get through this loss.

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?

Loss
Grief

Who originally created this object? (If you created this object, such as photo, then put "self" here.)

Rosalie Adams

Give this story a date.

2020-10-08
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