A New Life

Where do I begin? When the whole talk of the coronavirus started, I honestly thought it was a joke or something. I didn’t think it would be something this serious and now here I am with a completely altered life. Will it return to normal in a month? Maybe two? A year? Who knows.

This semester has been anything but normal. One week I was talking with my roommates about spring break plans and the next we were all stuck at home saying, “what even happened?” It’s not like I had any other plans besides working and maybe going back home for a night, but still. It seemed like everyone had to cancel all their plans and were stuck at home wondering if we were going to be able to have normal classes again. I kind of liked the idea of having all online classes just because I’m able to work more, but then again I don’t get to see my classmates or professors again, so was it really worth hoping to stay online?

It’s definitely hard finding the motivation to want to do some of my assignments. I didn’t realize it was dead week until yesterday. I thought, “crap I haven’t started on my final projects yet,” and even after the split second of panic I still went back to what I was doing even though I know I could put that on hold and start on at least one final. This class I at least have a few deadlines every week that kind of help keep me on track, but Netflix and a puzzle sound so much more fun than finding newsworthy articles to tweet.

I’m still going to work full time and there’s rumors that we might try and start slowly opening up our store. It’s not that I’m scared for it to open, I’m pissed that the company is even considering allowing the store to open up right now. I don’t mind working because I can stay a safe distance from customers safely inside the store. If we we’re allowed to have customers come inside, I could possibly come into contact with people that might have the virus and then it would just be a disaster. Drive thru is all we need open until we see some kind of decline in cases.

Also, since this was the last semester of my senior year of college, I did miss out on many of my “lasts.” The last time I’d walk into the photography studio, the last time I’d walk through the student union, the last time I could show up unannounced into my professors office to say hi, and maybe even the last time I see some of my college friends. I have the opportunity to walk at graduation in the summer, but it definitely won’t feel the same as if I was able to walk in May like I was supposed to. I don’t even know if I want to walk in July then.

During this last semester I was also going hard at wedding planning. I found a dress, we picked a date, we found a venue and an officiant, we’ve even paid off a big chunk of deposits and portions of the vendors. Since the coronavirus slowly started shutting everything down, I’m stuck. Do I keep planning? Do we cancel? Do we move it? Do we still do it and just record it for everyone to see hopefully in the future?

There are many questions that I just don’t have an answer to and I know no one will. I’ve asked my parents and they just say, “do what you want to do,” but honestly, I don’t know what to do. I didn’t plan for this to happen. I’ve already decided to cancel my bridal shower, which isn’t too big of a deal but what do I do about the rest? Maybe I’m asking these questions to the public so someone can give me some kind of advice.

I know it’ll probably be a while before anything goes back to any kind of normal. One good thing to come out of this is it seems that our Earth is healing. No one knows how long this pandemic will last, but for now I guess I’ll just take it all one day at a time.