46 Five Hundred Sticks, Four DMV Trips, Three Cities, Two Schools, One Pandemic, and No Wi-Fi: My COVID-19 Story
Anonymous
On March 13th, 2020, I walked out of school to my friend’s house, thinking I’d be back Monday. On the way there, we gossiped about how half the students had already disappeared, pulled out by parents worried about New York becoming one of the biggest COVID hotspots in the country. We laughed about how strange it all felt as I said goodbye, still making plans for our sleepover the next night. I ended up bailing on the sleepover, and unintentionally, on our friendship. I never saw her again.
I was fifteen years old and in ninth grade, with my biggest concern being how to fix the terrible paint job on my Nike Air Forces. My mom got the email saying school was closed and packed up my sister and me to stay with her boyfriend in Long Island for a week or so.
That week turned into two months. His house was deep in the woods, quiet, isolated, and completely different than what I was used to. My COVID experience looked nothing like my friends’, and it wasn’t just because they were in the city. There were no 24/7 FaceTime calls, Netflix binges, or baking banana bread. My mom’s boyfriend restricted the Wi-Fi, using some app to turn it off on me and my sister’s phones. I had Wi-Fi during school hours only, which, with astonishing consistency, turned on an hour late everyday but promptly shut off at four pm. We also had no kitchen access because he was obsessively tidy. One night, my sister and I snuck downstairs for a snack, and the next morning, within five minutes of waking up, he found the tiniest crumb I have ever seen on the floor and demanded to know who had eaten in the kitchen.
Weekends were worse. If we wanted to use the Wi-Fi, we had to earn it. Some of the tasks we were assigned included picking up hundreds of sticks from the front and backyard and chopping logs for firewood. Since it was late winter turning into early spring, it was too cold to do anything outside. We had no books, paper, or really anything since we only packed for a week. Luckily, my mom’s boyfriend had a keyboard downstairs, which became my designated activity. During those two months, I would desperately screenshot sheet music and tutorials when I had Wi-Fi and spend hours teaching myself to read music and play a single piece. I think it kept me from going insane. Fortunately, we did have occasional outings, which gave me something to do. I don’t think we ever went into full lockdown, since we still went outside to get groceries or go on walks.
In May, my sister and I flew to California to stay with my dad. My mom suited us up with double masks, including a N-95, rubber gloves, and a ridiculous number of disinfectant wipes. In California, things felt more relaxed and normal. My dad, being a dentist and therefore an essential worker, still went to work every day. Somedays I went with him and helped out at the office with administrative work, while other days were spent running (a new hobby I picked up) or studying.
My one major goal that summer was to get my driver’s permit. I studied like it was my job, knowing the handbook word for word. After collecting hours of driving with my instructor and sitting through multiple driver’s ed classes, I was more than ready to take my written exam. Unfortunately the DMV had other plans, and getting my permit ended up being my biggest challenge during COVID. The first time I went to the DMV, I arrived at two pm and waited outside in forty–degree heat for two and half hours. I was turned away because the DMV was going to close soon and the people standing outside wouldn’t make it on time, since there were heavy social distancing precautions. I arrived around noon during my second attempt, waiting for four hours. Just as I reached the front of the line, they told us all to go home. My third attempt I arrived at nine in the morning and managed to make it inside for ten minutes before I was turned away because I didn’t have enough documentation proving I was a California resident. My final and fourth attempt I arrived at nine again, along with every possible document I could find in my house. I studied so hard I flew through the forty-six questions in forty seconds, getting them all right.
In spite of all the hardship, one really amazing thing came out of COVID. My mom decided to transfer me to a new school for the upcoming academic year since it offered a more challenging IB curriculum and offered hybrid learning instead of fully virtual. That’s where I met some of my best friends. Being at an international school also broadened my perspective, allowing me to connect with people from all over the world.
By late 2021, we were back in school full time, and COVID-19 cases started to rise. For the past year or so, my school had barely seen any cases. Then, a few of my friends celebrated Thanksgiving together and they all got sick. I had never been so grateful to have been grounded. COVID spread through our grade quickly, along with the rest of the school. It became clear that my friend group was the perfect scapegoat. The cases at school were still rising, and everybody was looking for somebody to blame. It didn’t matter that other people were still going out or that half the grade was ignoring precautions. I specifically remember one girl starting a rumor that my friend had COVID when she didn’t, leading to the entire grade blaming our entire friend group for the outbreak. One guy labeled my friend group “superspreaders” and then invited half the high school to a party at his apartment two days later. Ninth graders (we were eleventh graders by then) found my friend’s number through her little brother’s phone and screamed at her, saying our grade ruined everything, despite having been willing to pay $40 to go to an upperclassman party just a few weeks ago.
These experiences reflect the course theme of scapegoating, or blaming a group of people to avoid confronting a larger truth. Throughout history, pandemics have sparked fear, transforming into blame. This pattern has been observed throughout history: gay men during the HIV/AIDS crisis, Jews during the Black Death, or South Asian immigrants during cholera outbreaks. Although my friends definitely could have been more cautious, the broader culture around us made casual hangouts seem normal. Instead of addressing the culture that permitted parties and large group hangouts acceptable, people chose to direct their anger towards my friends.
My COVID experience was definitely unique, with a mix of frustration and growth. I saw how quickly fear could morph into judgement, but also learned how to adapt to unfavorable situations and learn. It definitely was not the high school experience I expected, but it shaped me into the person I am now.