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  2020-12-01

  Growth in Quarantine

  The week before the national quarantine guidelines were announced, I was on a choir trip to the Southern Division ACDA competition in Alabama. This trip was the beginning of my final high school plans, the beginning of the end. I was expecting to come home and tell my friends all about it, to plan for my next choir trip to New York City in a few short weeks, to soak up my last moments of high school, and, of course, to finally walk across the stage and graduate. It is kind of ironic that I was dreading the spotlight on me when I was handed my diploma and doing the awkward tassel flip, but now I wish I could have anything close to that experience. When I left that day for Alabama, I did not expect to never see a majority of those people from school ever again. The feelings of hopelessness and of worthlessness were shared among many globally, including myself, leaving me in a state of prolonged stagnance. Immediately after I got off the bus home from Alabama, I was sent on a train to my dad’s new house in rural upstate New York. I did not get to go home and get my things or say hi to my family. The next few months of my life consisted of my duffel bag packed for one week, random Amazon orders, and an endless forest. At first, I still had school to keep me occupied and feel normal, but eventually, that ended and I had nothing to fill up the days. My dad was barely home, as he had just started a new job, and there was no other human within several miles, not that I could talk to them anyway, but the thought would have been nice. I was completely isolated. I tried painting, baking, video games, and dying my hair, but nothing filled the emptiness I was feeling. I felt extremely unproductive, like I was just wasting away where no one could find me. Eventually, I decided to take advantage of the nothingness surrounding me. I ventured into the woods and saw a whole world that kept continuing amidst the pandemic. I was reminded that life kept going, and while it seemed like mine was completely frozen, that it would start up again one day. I started spending more and more time in the woods, watching saplings develop, the fawns growing older, and the stream carve its way through the rough earth. In order to keep a piece of that life closer to home, I created biospheres in glass jars so that I could feel the hope for life when I didn’t want to go outside. Through those months, I did a lot of reflection on the pandemic and what it meant for myself and others. I realized that my life will continue, I will continue to live one day, but some people will not if we are not in isolation, so suddenly all the pain of the things I missed was worth it. Eventually, I had to leave New York and come to Washington. I moved into my mom’s two bedroom apartment shared by her boyfriend and my little brother a few months prior to school starting. I began to experience those same things I did when in New York at first, but the difference was that here, I did not have a vast forest to walk into. I had approximately 1,200 square feet and a shared bedroom with a five year old boy to wander around. I had to learn to cope all over again. I turned to one of my favorite things, even before the pandemic: plants. A simple succulent now carried so much more weight than before, reminding me of life, similar to the forest in New York. I have since expanded my plant collection in my dorm room, reminding myself everyday that even when it doesn’t feel like it, I am continuing to grow and one day life will be back to normal. Once the pandemic ends, I will continue to care for and expand my collection of plants. I think that one day it will be cool to show people my “pandemic plants.” It will be a symbol of my growth through quarantine, a symbol that I made it. I never thought that something so simple would make such a big difference in my life. Everyone lost something during this time, but I believe everyone gained something too, and I gained some very valuable life lessons and insight. While the pandemic is still blazing forward and so many things are changing, I will try my best to stay inspired by life and inspire those around me as well.