127 When the World Feels Upside Down, Who Knew Running Would Appear to be Fun
Alexandria Mansfield
I remember the flurry of hallway conversations on March 13th, 2020, the chatter amongst my friends and I that the March break would be extended, and how exciting it was that we would have extra time off. Some of my peers declared that this was it, the last day our grade 12 class would see each other and that graduation, prom, and those final days of high school would become only ideas and not memories. But we didn’t pay much attention to these cautions; the acceptance of this projection as reality only took shape during the weeks that followed. Thinking back on it now, that last Friday was one I spent like any other 18-year-old in Kingston (Ontario), driving around with a friend, listening to music on full blast and laughing at the adventures we had endured that day. Yet I remember we went to the grocery store to stock up on snacks; we’ve got to get stuff to keep us going if we may be locked down for a few weeks, I remember thinking. I cherish that one last evening, because what was looming closer flipped that sense of normalcy on its head.
Kingston, my home at the time, went into full lockdown following that March 13th day. Schools were initially closed for two weeks following the March break, but as time progressed, the closure was extended until May 1st, May 31st, and eventually, all in-person classes were suspended for the remainder of the year. Ontario was placed under a provincial state of emergency between March 17 and July 24, 2020, and my family largely shifted our lives according to the guidance outlined by political leaders and public health officials. I believe that with the uncertainty and fear, my parents found comfort in following the rules put forward by these organizations, a coping mechanism to help them navigate how to act. My COVID experience was largely shaped by my parents, my dad being 79 and my mom 56 at the time. With my dad’s age and my mom’s history of cancer, both my parents were classified under the higher-risk category, and this meant that my parents followed the lock-down protocols extremely carefully. For months, we had this sign my mom had printed off that said, “Please clean hands before entering!” with a little basket of antiseptic wipes balanced on the top of our stairway post. I remember the seriousness of the initial conversations with my parents, explaining that seeing friends could only be socially distanced or virtual from now on. Even into the summer as the restrictions began to ease and things started to open up, my parents did not waiver on their beliefs towards social distancing and isolation. While I watched my friends start to hang out more, driving in the same car or creating bubbles amongst themselves, I remained committed to car parking lot hangouts, distanced walks or patio dinners. I believe this was my greatest challenge of COVID, remaining committed to protecting my parents, following their guidance and beliefs, while watching my friends re-engage with each other and the world around them. My parents and I clashed hard over some of these limitations, myself a frustrated teenager eager to see their friends, and my parents, mindfully and patiently waiting until the COVID cases reached a level that they would be comfortable with us re-emerging into society.
Our daily lives felt as though they were suspended in time, the only sense of routine being when the dog needed to be walked, when the meals needed to be cooked, and when my parents’ favourite show, the Big Bang Theory, was on TV. We adopted some traditions to keep us sane, my dad and I would play a game of cribbage after dinner, and we would always order takeout on Friday nights to support local restaurants. But as the weeks turned into months, those cribbage games became fewer and further in between, and we all eventually got tired of take-out. Truthfully, I think we ran out of places we were interested in ordering from. Reflecting on those first few weeks, I cannot recall much of how we spent our time on a day-to-day basis. Early 2020 was when TikTok had taken the world by storm, and I surrendered my time to the app willingly. A mindless distraction, a laugh, a way to zone out of reality and let time pass was what I wanted at that time, and most days were spent moving from one couch to another to watch more mindless videos. I know for a fact that on Snapchat, the digital diary per se of my generation, there exists a saved video I had sent to my friends describing how, instead of working on my math assignment, I had decided to spend more time scrolling on TikTok and guess at the answer before submitting it. When marks are declared by the province to not be able to go down, it is not surprising that many students share similar stories.
I have to admit my love for and newfound ability to run was something positive that had come out of the COVID lockdowns. I had run in elementary school but had fallen out of it as I aged, and my scoliosis correction surgery a few years prior had certainly curved my engagement in sports. I wasn’t in bad shape, but I wasn’t in great shape either. I had never really considered going back to running, but the persistent feeling of being cooped up started to stir up an urge to get outside for a run. It was a long journey, from staggering to complete 1km, taking on a 30-day running challenge, to finally completing my first 10km run, the journey itself provided me a way to challenge myself that I was lacking in other areas of my life. Running provided me with a mental and physical escape from the craziness of the world, offering me a new coping mechanism and a positive manner to fuel myself that I haven’t known before. I’m still an active runner today and can confidently say it is one of the most effective coping mechanisms that has helped me to manage the stress, trials and tribulations of university. To COVID, I owe a thank-you for making something that seemed so daunting and so hard, appear to be fun.
Blame, referenced throughout the course as a coping mechanism amidst the emergence of infectious diseases, played an integral part in my COVID experience. It dominated to news that often played in the background of my house, assigning blame for the rising causes to individuals against the COVID vaccinations, to university students who refused to stop partying, those who travelled to Kingston, or to political leaders whose COVID response was not in alignment to how the Canadian government was managing the situation. Blame integrated itself into conversations around the dinner table, how these populations were at fault for why lockdown strategies were not effective. As we learned, blame was often used as a way to reconcile with the fears of the unknown, and I believe it served a similar role during the COVID-19 pandemic. Members of my Kingston community, my family, and even myself are guilty of assigning blame to someone or some group for the mess that we appeared to have landed ourselves in, fear, an almost instinctual response, in an attempt to cope.
