No school. Doesn’t that sound nice? We all thought it would be until we had to live it. I know most students dread waking up at 7 a.m. to go to school; I definitely did. But I am now wishing I could go back so I can see all of my friends. 

We used to have a pretty solid and busy routine that went something like this: Waking up, going to school, having practice or going to work, going home to do homework and spend time with our families and friends. 

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, our schedules have been a little different. I have been waking up to do online classes and spending a lot of my time glued to a screen for school purposes or just to communicate with my friends. I spend a good chunk of my time just going on my phone, eating, or watching Netflix, and let me tell you, that gets pretty boring fast, which I thought I would never say. It is definitely hard not being able to see my friends, since I’m used to seeing them every day. But as of right now, that is the new norm that we are all going to have to try to face. 

I have a father and sister who both work in New York City, so concerns about them catching the virus has been something that my family has been scared of and cautious about. They both now work from home, but since New York City has such a high rate of cases, it is a scary thing to go through since we do not know if any of their colleagues have it since most haven’t had the chance to be tested. My mom works at Forest Ave Elementary School, so she has been home the same amount of time we have. 

My brother and I both work at a local grocery store, so we both have to take precautions since we are interacting with lots of customers a day. I have been constantly washing my hands. We have to restock almost every day since people are constantly buying in bulk. As everyone knows, toilet paper and hand sanitizer sell out the day we restock, which is insane. We have put up glass barriers between us and the customer, so we don’t get too close. We of course have to wear gloves, and we try to stay a respectable distance. Everyone is pretty much on top of each other in line, since they are trying to get as many people in line at once, which should not be happening, because of social distancing. The store has definitely been way more crowded than normal, which means there are a lot of screaming customers yelling at the cashiers to go faster. 

I have been going on runs to keep in shape, but I try my best to avoid running where a lot of other people are. I miss being able to go to track practice every day after school and being able to run with my friends. It is definitely something that is hard to adjust to for me.

Even though this virus and pandemic is very scary, I have learned to not take things for granted and to just live life, you never know when things will change. From here forward, I will be grateful for being able to go to school, since I now find myself missing it while I used to constantly say how much I hated going. This pandemic has opened my eyes in numerous ways and I will continuously be thankful for all I have