131 A World Turned Inside Out

Anonymous

I was in Ontario, Canada, and 14 years old, just beginning my second semester of high school. When Covid was officially declared a pandemic, I was sitting in my Grade 9 English class. The announcement came through, and my teacher read it off her phone and told us: “Maybe this will be the moment you remember from the start of the pandemic.” She was right. That day, we were told that school was closing for an extended March break, and I remember being so happy at the idea of an extra-long vacation. On the bus ride home, as I scrolled through headlines about Covid-19, that excitement was mixed with an unsettling feeling. I didn’t fully understand what was coming, but I thought life might be changing in a way I hadn’t expected.

Within days, my world shrank to the size of our home. We went into full lockdown for around four months, where life felt like it had hit pause. My parents were the only ones leaving the house, masked up just for groceries and essential errands. My sister and I stayed inside, watching the world change through case numbers that seemed to only climb higher. My only real outings were short walks, where the outside world felt abandoned, but at least a little more normal.

In those first few weeks, there was a novelty to the experience. FaceTime calls with my friends, group chats being more active than before, and my dad finally caving in and getting a Netflix subscription. I binged shows and movies, trying to have fun in a situation that didn’t feel real yet. Then the weeks stretched into months, and isolation settled in. Birthdays passed without big celebrations, school felt like a formality, and even little things, like hearing my grandparents’ voices over the phone instead of in-person, made the distance feel heavier. After the strictest lockdown period, my family slowly started leaving the house more, cautiously stepping back into the world. I remember the first time we visited an extended family member’s house, sitting in their backyard masked and distanced, like a reunion with an invisible barrier between us. Even as things reopened, there was an underlying anxiety, worrying about whether we were being careful enough to not get sick. 

Then came the vaccines, a turning point that felt like the first real light at the end of the tunnel. My parents got theirs in early 2021, and I got mine in May. I still remember the clinic, a makeshift setup in a building under construction, with masked volunteers guiding people through the process like something from a dystopian novel. By July, I was fully vaccinated, and for the first time in over a year, the world didn’t feel quite so small anymore. It felt like there was a collective hope that maybe things were finally turning around.

One of my biggest challenges during the pandemic was getting Covid, twice. The first time was in summer of 2022 when I was doing a high school co-op at a doctor’s office. That experience was brutal. My symptoms were intense, and my asthma made it even worse. I remember coughing so violently that it felt like I could barely breathe, a level of sickness I had never experienced before. The second time, in November 2023 during my first year of university, was completely different. It was like a bad cold, annoying but not remotely as scary. It was strange to experience firsthand how the same virus could feel so different over time. Despite all the chaos, the pandemic did have some silver linings. My sister and I grew closer in ways we hadn’t before. Between our daily walks, movie nights, and just spending so much time together, we found a new kind of routine. Before 2020, we were just siblings and after it, she became one of my best friends. Covid also allowed me to appreciate simple things: fresh air, in-person conversations, hugging the people I love, and just the freedom to go where I wanted to without second-guessing the risks.

Virtual school felt almost like a formality. My school board had a policy where grades couldn’t drop from where they were when in-person learning stopped. I did a handful of assignments, but it felt more like checking a box than real learning (it was definitely the easiest semester of high school I’ve ever had). By Grade 10, we were back in school, but things still weren’t “normal.” That winter, cases surged again and my mom, worried about my asthma, decided I’d finish the year online. I spent most of my school days in front of a laptop, photocopying my handwritten assignments to submit them and feeling disconnected from everything. Looking back, I think virtual learning had lasting effects. The lack of in-person socialization left me feeling isolated, disconnected from my elementary school friends but barely knowing my high school ones. It wasn’t until Grade 12, when masks were gone and life felt normal again, that I finally started making lasting friendships. Academically, online schools also reshaped how we engage with learning. So many of us got used to multitasking or zoning out during lessons. Even now in university, I observe in myself and my peers how those habits linger; we’re used to learning in a way that feels more independent than communal.

I think that stigma played a major role during the pandemic, shaping how people treated both the virus and each other. Stigma influenced how people viewed those who got Covid, those who were vaccinated or unvaccinated, and even how seriously people took restrictions. I experienced this firsthand when I caught Covid, and I felt like I had to justify how I got it, as if I had done something wrong or been careless. Even though getting Covid was unavoidable for many, there was still a sense of blame attached to it. I also noticed this stigma in the way people reacted after I recovered. I stayed isolated in my room until I tested negative, but even after that, when I attended family gatherings, I felt like people kept their distance from me more than usual. It wasn’t outright exclusion, but it was enough to make me feel like I was somehow still contagious in their eyes. This same stigma applied to vaccination. People judged each other for their choices, sometimes to the point of dividing families. Some saw getting vaccinated as a civic duty, while others saw it as unnecessary or dangerous. I remember overhearing heated arguments, where vaccination status became a defining statement about personal values. It was strange to see first-hand how a virus that affected everyone could still create sharp divides between people. Ultimately, Covid showed how stigma can shape our behaviors, relationships, and decision making. It wasn’t only a health crisis, but also a social one, where judgement and fear were defining factors in how people treated one another.