14 The Clocks Kept Ticking, but the World Stopped Spinning – A Reflection on COVID

It wasn’t a full lockdown, at least not initially; all my school board did was keep pushing back the days we would go back. It was when the provincial and federal governments started announcing warnings and closures that things felt really serious, even though reality wouldn’t really set in for anyone until months into lockdown. My teachers did their best to shift our classes to be fully remote, and I remember our grades were frozen in place, where we couldn’t lose any marks and only improve them, which I was pretty grateful about. During that semester where everything initially shut down, I didn’t really do any work, and I didn’t really leave the house. I would go out for a rare walk or bit of exercise, partly to fulfill assignments for a fitness class I was taking and partly to avoid going stir crazy, or what I at least thought was considered stir crazy. I truthfully can’t remember how long lockdown was, or when it was considered to be over with no restrictions; there would be repeated back and forth periods of full lockdown and limited contact and interaction, all dependent on case trends which my family and I seemed to watch religiously every day in hopes of seeing some kind of immediate relief or change. When schools came back in September and I went back for a victory lap year, class structures changed drastically, with cohorts and spending almost a whole month on each subject, so as to keep people separated in case someone got sick and exposed others in the school. I did alright during staggered and virtual high school, but when it came to virtual university, I really started to struggle. I never realized how much of my attention span I had slowly lost over lockdown, and I paid the price for it, something I’m sure a lot of people can empathize with. That was only one big challenge, since there’s rarely only one challenge that gets thrown your way. I had trouble making friends as well since I didn’t live on campus, and I especially felt this as my high school friends and I slowly became busy with our own schooling and jobs, and slowly drifted further apart, suddenly leaving me, probably like a lot of other people, both physically and socially isolated. I missed out on big life events too, like my own graduation, important birthdays for family and friends, and for a while I felt like I missed out on growing up in a way, not because of celebrations, but because I felt like I wasn’t living. On top of this, I seemed to slowly lose any inspiration and passion I had for previous hobbies, like reading, drawing and painting, and I think in the long run, this took a heavier toll on me than school stress ever did.

I don’t really like thinking about everything that happened then, since there’s still a lot of stuff that hurts, but there are at least a few good things that came out of lockdown, in a very strange way. I was able to hold onto my love of videogames, and I got to play them with some fun friends for a few years and really come to terms with having some time and playing them by myself. What few friendships that were left after people lost contact with each other were pretty thoroughly tested and are stronger; I think I understand some of my older friends a bit better now, and I can only hope they know me better, too. I managed to get into skateboarding after wanting to try it for years, and despite having some pretty serious slip ups, I really enjoy how freeing it feels, especially when you can hit a long path and move with other people. For school, I was forced to reevaluate what I wanted to do for a career path, since I realized I wasn’t enjoying myself in my previous areas of study. That’s definitely not the case now, as I excitedly and jokingly chase people (especially my family) around with new information I learn all the time, whether they want to learn it or not. As for my passions for reading and my art, those have taken a while to come back. Finding the time to read again is one thing, but finding the inspiration and motivation to create art is an entirely different problem. However, I’ve slowly been able to gather different sources of techniques and inspiration to look at, and I’ve even noticed some positive changes in my personal style now that I’ve picked up my pencils and brushes again. School projects have also really helped to jumpstart my creativity, especially when I had thought at one point that I wouldn’t be able to do any of that anymore or enjoy it for that matter.

Out of everything that’s happened over the course of COVID for me, I think one theme I kept seeing repeatedly and everywhere was fear. The fear of how deadly people thought this initially unknown virus would be, fear of how long we would all be trapped in our homes for, fear of a lack of a cure, fear of the cure itself. At all points within the pandemic, there was some kind of fear being circulated along with the contagion, including my own at certain points. Some of it was certainly justified, while at times some fears caused more dissent and chaos than anything. I was worried for my health and my more vulnerable family members’ health, like so many others, and I was worried about what the state of the world would be like. Most of all, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to go back to being myself after being alone for so long. Once again, in hindsight, I came out alright, albeit changed, like various people will say when wondering about this period in their lives. I really think it’ll be interesting to try and convey all this for the historical record 100 years from now. A lot of these experiences are shared, have already happened before in previous pandemics and world events, and are in fact cyclical: the panic, the closures and isolation, the blame and pushback. Most notably, the way that people change, and their relationships with one another ended up evolving too, along with our science. I think, in both humour and seriousness, some people, like me, ended up changing alongside the virus, and aren’t quite the same as we were before.