22 COVID-19 – Change, Monotony, Self-Reflection, and Secrecy
Noah Marley
Despite many people’s avid objections, the COVID-19 pandemic was a defining moment in many of our lives. It marked such a stark and drastic change in how we chose to or were able to exist in the world. In March of 2020, right when the COVID-19 virus began to escalate in North America, I was in the city I had spent my entire life growing up in, Oakville, Ontario. I lived with my family of 5 in a detached typical suburban home. At the time, I was 15 years old and in Grade 10 at my local high school. I remember the school sent out an email during March break saying something along the lines of “school will be closed for 2 weeks due to COVID-19.” Looking back, it is rather silly that I found any sense of joy from this. I knew that this was a virus people were dying of, yet the seriousness of the global pandemic had not settled in; all I could see was a two-week vacation. It was unbeknownst to me that those 2 weeks would turn into two years. By the time the COVID-19 pandemic started to de-escalate, I would be 17 and graduating from high school, about to start university.
It was only when those two weeks got extended that I started to realize how drastic the situation truly was. My parents, both people with medical backgrounds, took the lockdown very seriously. This meant that in our household, a lockdown was a lockdown. I did not disagree with my parents; I was happy to do my part in preventing the spread of the virus. I masked and got the vaccine the moment it became available to me. However, despite being happy to take COVID-19 seriously, it still impacted my life in rather strange ways. I spent most of my high school journey online instead of in person, a change to my day-to-day life. As this is a period of your life where you are trying to figure out who you are, the pandemic forced me to do this development more individually. There were moments when I felt like I would learn something about myself, but none of that mattered because I could not apply it outside of my bedroom. Pre-COVID-19, I additionally did an abundance of activities. These included playing travel baseball in the USA, volleyball, badminton, hockey, and piano. These came to a screeching stop, there were no more summer tournaments in the middle of nowhere, West Virginia. Up until that point, baseball had acquired so much of my life, I think that the halting stop had made me realize it was no longer something that brought me happiness. The absence of these activities allowed me to reflect on what I truly enjoyed as an individual. Our household lockdowns would come and go as did the severity of the strains circulating at the time. Over 2 years, my house was probably in lockdown for an accumulative one. A lockdown meant no social events, wearing a mask at all times even when outside, and constant testing. When COVID-19 seemed to slow down, my house’s restrictions also did. I was allowed to see friends, ideally outside, in small groups, and with the same people. My activities would start up again, although with changes, outside if possible, wearing masks, and vaccine mandates.
The greatest challenge for me during COVID-19 was the monotony. My room used to be my favourite place in the world, designed with everything I loved. I grew so tired of seeing my room every day, that sense of comfort I got from my bed then started to fill me with dread. I would wake up, open my laptop, barely pay attention to school, and finish my day mostly without leaving my room. Every day felt identical and unexceptional, I grew weary of walking down the same hallway every single day. I almost felt claustrophobic, trapped within the walls of my house, although with complete understanding of why it was necessary. Before COVID-19, I was extremely introverted and would have always rather spent time by myself than with others. Now, I still enjoy spending time with myself, but the isolation and monotony of individuality pushed me to crave spending time with people, causing me to become a more extroverted person today. This is something good that came out of COVID-19 for me. I now appreciate immeasurably more the ability to talk to someone, even if it is simply small talk at the grocery store. Never again will I shy away from learning someone’s life story, a lesson I learned through the monotony.
COVID-19 is intrinsically connected to secrecy. People within my life were so desperate to escape the restrictions placed upon them that they would have gatherings in secret. Although morally wrong, I can understand why they did it; humans are social creatures, and isolation can be damaging to one’s mental health. Despite not breaking the restrictions during COVID-19 myself, I can empathize with what led those to break them. I disagree with their choice but understand why it was made. I remember being in grade 11, a person at my high school decided to throw a party amid a very rough COVID-19 period, which meant that lockdowns were strict at the time. I did not attend; however, I remember on the invitation there was a whole section on how to avoid getting shut down from COVID-19 restrictions. It said, “Make sure you come in through the back so that no one sees you.” People’s desire for socializing led to an attitude of secrecy, people could do morally ambiguous activities, just ensuring they did not get caught. It almost felt like a 1920s speakeasy, just instead of alcohol being behind the fake wall, it was just another person. This example exemplifies how secrecy made its way into COVID-19 as a way to escape the restrictions placed upon people, regardless of why the restrictions were put in place. The people who threw that party at my high school were so far removed from the true damaging impacts of COVID-19 that secretly throwing a party became a logical thing to do.
