115 A Tugboat Through a Storm

On March 14, 2020, Covid was here to stay. It started as this mystery virus that was spreading imminently, on the rise, leading to schools in Ontario being cancelled for two weeks after March break. I was in Grade 10 attending high school in the Peel District School Board. At 15, I did not know that I would be celebrating my 16th birthday in lockdown. I did not think that the world would change much after the extended March break, but I was wrong.

Initially, it was a bit confusing, because we knew we were supposed to minimize activity and new guidelines kept coming out. Eventually, there was a stay-at-home order with the lockdown but my family had no issue with following the protocols because we had figured that it was the best way to do our part by limiting the spread. We transitioned to online learning for the remainder of the school year, seeing our classmates through Microsoft Teams and filling out way too many Google Forms for assessments. My dad helped me set up his old desktop in my room so I could have a place to do “school” from home. When I went to bed, I felt overstimulated because I had completed a whole school day in the place where I was supposed to rest, and my computer’s flashing power button was not making it easy. My mom came up with the idea of placing some fabric she found over my desk when I was done with class so I could mentally separate home and school, which helped. 

I was spending much more time at my desk, so I decorated the wall behind me (my meeting background) with a bookshelf we bought but didn’t put up and some wall decals my mother had. On the wall behind my desk, I put up childhood pictures and memories that were special to me and frequently updated my wall-mounted dry-erase calendar with school deadlines to keep myself busy. I remember trying new trends of whipped Dalgona coffee with my younger brother and we were unclear on how we liked it. I would see the face masks my mother bought, and hand sanitizer scattered around the house. My family used to grocery shop together but now it was my dad going on a solo mission and bringing back what we needed. I remember him always having the Covid-19 channel on the TV, with the black screen on which the rising numbers of cases and the death toll were shown.

Most of my family is around the world, so long-distance calling was nothing new in terms of connection. What felt funny was calling my friends through FaceTime and texting them instead of seeing them every day like we would normally. For me, I think my greatest challenge during Covid was losing the social connection that I once had and missing out on my high school experience. To think about how we would be enjoying the warmer weather during lunch or meeting up after school if life had continued as normal. I am grateful that I still did have important milestones in my high school experience like Grade 12 where I was reunited with my friends, became a “senior” and had a great time at prom. I also graduated from high school with a proper ceremony where my family was able to see me walk across a stage. But even when holding my diploma, I still felt like a part of that degree got lost somewhere in the time I did not spend within the walls of my high school. 

Something good that came out of Covid for me was the extra time I had on my hands. My parents used to drive me to school, and I saved an hour a day. Surprisingly, I had kept my morning routine and found that I had more time to myself to start my day so I would shower, eat breakfast, and settle into virtual class. This provided me with the needed structure for my day, but I also know that it gave flexibility to my peers who could wake up minutes before being required to log in. Virtual schooling was both a good and a bad thing. I liked the convenience of learning online but have to admit that the testing did not fully prepare us. This was not a very good thing as university, which was in-person, expected us to be able to study for midterms and final exams without having developed the skill of high-stakes testing.

I do believe that Covid had some impact on my mental health, as well as on others my age. As time went on, I was only in touch with some of my friends, who I contacted very regularly. My friends also felt the same way, with hidden anxiety and stress mixing into the uncertainty of the times. It also felt like this might just become the new normal, that the lockdown would never lift, and this was it for high school. 

I think that scholars studying humanity’s Covid experience should know that it was vastly different for everyone. I remember watching celebrities complaining about the pandemic from their mansions saying that everyone is going through the same thing. They have the right to feel that universal isolation and loneliness, but a quote that I had heard which perfectly summed it up was that we were all going through the same storm, but we were on different boats. When I looked at the stories of the unhoused on the streets, declines in the accessibility of services and necessities, raging social and economic disparities, hate and blame, not being able to work or provide for yourself or others, the chaos of the healthcare systems, as well as the loss and grief of that time, some were coursing through the storm on life rafts while others were on yachts. I am grateful for the strong support and company of my family and like to think that we were on a small but mighty tugboat while navigating this time. I also recognize the immense privilege we had of having a relatively smooth journey as we had supplies, food, a roof over our heads, health, and each other through the tumultuous time, which may not have been the case for others. 

A course theme that I think of when we are learning about the epidemics of disease in the past is the sheer chaos of the time. This includes the chaos that leads to the disruption of social systems, from the time of the Black Death to even Covid in the 21st century. There were much larger displays of this issue with the healthcare system being pummeled to the rise of the Freedom Convoy in Canada. One small example that will always stick with me was getting my second booster shot on the same rink where I used to ice skate a few years back.