To my English 110 class,
How am I doing?
At first glance, I am fine. Perfectly fine in the home I grew up in with my entire family of 6 in the same walls of each other which only happens for about 2 months every year. My mom cooks dinner every night and my dad still goes to work every day as his business was deemed ‘essential.’ I go on zoom to class and sit in my room all day doing homework or watching TV. Sometimes I run or go for walks by myself or my mom has us clean and organize a different part of the house. Some nights we all watch a Netflix comedy special together. Its me living in high school again, only without all the best parts.
Superficially, I am fine. Deeper underneath the surface I have officially started to go crazy. I crave human interaction more than I ever have before. I am the third kid of four in my family. My siblings have never liked me. I am textbook middle child. My oldest brother works and doesn’t really partake in the shenanigans anymore. He stopped that years ago. My youngest brother hates me and has for as long as I can remember. I did used to torture him, but I stopped that years ago as well so nowadays he just hates me because he is painfully stubborn. My older sister doesn’t like that I don’t agree with her, so she likes to take my little brother as a pet and finds it so much fun to have fun with him and neglect me on purpose and in arrogantly rude ways. Thus, its me all alone to my own devices, just as I had for the preceding ten years of my life. Stuck in the middle.
In high school this task was much easier, especially after I could drive. I would drive a mile down the road to my friends where I found much more sanity and belonging, but now I can’t do that. I mean don’t get me wrong this is certainly not a cry for help. I am loved in my house and treated wonderfully by my parents; I just have no sense of connection to any of my siblings. So as this coronavirus takes over the planet, I am bitter. I am not so much bitter that I am stuck in the house, but because I constantly want to complain about being stuck in the house which is stupid because as Kourtney Kardashian once intelligently spoke, “there are people that are dying.”
Moral of the story: I am fine but I am also not fine. Not only do I have the annoying parts of high school back like curfew, not being able to see my friends on school nights, whole house is in bed by 10, and I have to interact with people at a certain hour of the morning rather than doing as I please, but I also have to do all the worst parts of college. What this virus has done has taken away all the fun parts of college and given us just as much if not more of the hard parts of college. I am just thankful I am not a senior or in the middle of something important right now. Which brings me to another reason why I am not allowed to complain. To sum up, this all stinks for everyone involved, I hope that it blows over before the summer or at least before fall semester, and I wish everyone reading this a sane, happy, healthy quarantine.
Yours truly,
Caroline Erlandsen
PS i uploaded a picture of my handsome dog to brighten your day. His name is Reggie 🙂
English 110 Spring 2020 10:10-11:00 
Caroline, even though I only have an older sister, she can be pretty ruthless sometimes so I can relate to you on that. You know how when you’re little it can feel like your sibling has made it their life’s mission to torment you? Yeah, I still feel that way. My sister moved out awhile ago and luckily, my parents are the most relaxed people so staying at my house all the time has actually been quite peaceful. Moving on, I like how you relate quarantine to “high school without the best parts.” It really does feel that way as I fall back into my same routines from high school, just without the freedom.
Hang in there, we can get through this!
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-Ellie Pellecchia
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I feel the same way, feeling isolated and distant from my family. There’s only three of us, so it’s pretty boring and not much to do. My mom’s company is also deemed “essential,” so she is still going to work and isn’t in the house until the evening. My brother spends the whole day in our basement, watching TV or playing video games. But like you, I’m doing fine, just trying to make the most of my time in quarantine. It’s funny that you brought up the Kardashian line, because yesterday as I was complaining to myself about there being no hummus left in my fridge, I thought about the scene where Kim lost her diamond earring. I thought about how there is no absolutely need to complain about hummus, since there are literally people dying out there. I also loved the part where you mentioned that we are left with all of the hard parts of college. For me, all of the “hard parts” got balanced out by the fun parts of college. Not even just going out or the pregames, but the little things too like staying in to watch a movie or getting dinner with my friends. In the long run though, I’m just looking forward to stepping back on campus and being at school again. That thought has really kept me going!!
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Hi Caroline! I appreciated the honesty and transparency in this piece. The deeper look into your family life and your thought process about this whole situation were refreshing to read. I also love your voice in this piece and the Kardashian quote which unfortunately is exceptionally relevant right now. Let’s keep our fingers crossed for a COVID-19 free summer 🙂
Stay safe and stay healthy!
-Jamie Morin
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Caroline!!! I feel you with being the textbook middle child. My older sister and younger brother always gang up on me and I am left alone it feels like. Your title is also an accurate description of how my quarantine life has been going. I know people have it so much worse than me so I am trying so hard not to complain, but the more I trap all of my opinions and emotions, the more insane I get. Hopefully the good parts of college will come back to us in the fall but until then we just have to spend time with our dogs while our other siblings gang up on us, the lone middle child. ps I love that picture of Reggie, it drew me to this post. 🙂
Grace Smithmyer
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