COVID-19 is Affecting Me Negatively

Surprise, surprise here’s another post about coronavirus and it seems to only be getting worse. At first it seemed like everyday there was a new case and new sense of fear of what stores should be doing with their employees and business. Now it’s every hour I check the news and something new has shut down or temporarily closed.

Something that I find scary in my situation is how restaurants across Kearney are either closing or cutting hours. My job that’s my main source of income, how I pay rent, has just announced to the staff that they are shortening our cafe’s hours. I know I have money saved up and I have some options going forth, but it’s still scary thinking I might not have a stable income in the next few weeks.

Focusing on school work at home is going to be a lot tougher now that I can’t go to campus and focus there. Whenever I’m at home I think I should be cleaning or wedding planning. I’m not thinking I should be working on a new blog post or discussion board or what photos I need to be taking. I’ve found it’s really hard for me to focus at home.

I have friends who are being given the option to move off campus and receive a partial refund. Some are accepting the refunds and heading home, some are staying and others are stuck on what they should do. Do they just isolate themselves? Do they accept the money? Do they give up their bit of freedom and move home with their parents? Who knows, there’s so many options for them and I feel stressed because of that.

Then there’s the concern of being out in public or coming into contact with people. My job I am constantly interacting with numerous people a day either through the drive thru or inside the restaurant. I live with four other people who are also having to go out to their jobs and interact with everyone. Living in a house of five people we need groceries so that’s even more people we’re having to come into contact with.

Something concerning I also just learned today is that one of the managers at my job has a brother who recently traveled to Colorado. Apparently, he avoided all of the quarantine procedures and once he came back was hanging out with family, this included my manager. Now the brother has some symptoms and my manager has quarantined herself and I was around her today, so now there’s a possibility I could’ve contracted the virus. Such fun news! (She says sarcastically.)

Anyways, the closer this gets to me the more stressed out I become. I thought I was going to be stressed out enough with it being my final semester at UNK, but I guess that wasn’t hard enough. Now, I get to stress about a virus that seems to me affecting me more and more every day.