I feel like the phrase, “How are you doing?” has been said across the globe by almost every person on the planet at least twice a day. This is an extremely weird time for everyone because we were going on about our everyday lives, and suddenly everything changed. 

It was honestly a joke to me at first, seeing pictures about the coronavirus on random meme pages on my explore page on Instagram in December. After I heard about schools sending students home or extending their spring break, I thought, “No, that won’t happen to me. Not Delaware.” Then the next week, our classes were canceled, and I had to pack up everything in my dorm and go home.

When I reached my town on the drive home, I saw at least ten people from high school and the whole concept of being home sort of hit me. Unpacking everything from college and trying to squish everything into my drawers sort of hit me. Even on the first day of classes, it sort of hit me. It wasn’t until I was sitting in a beach parking lot with my friends, all sitting in the back of our cars in a circle. A cop pulled into the parking lot, and we all began to freak out, wondering if we were actually six feet apart or if there were too many people in our “gathering.” I think in that moment, this whole, “pandemic thing” really made me think about what was actually happening in the world and how it was affecting me.

I’m not going to lie, I don’t necessarily hate being home. I get to cook my own meals in an actual kitchen in an oven, rather than heating up microwavable oatmeal or mac and cheese with a plastic fork. I can shower without shoes on, and even wake up at noon if I really wanted to. I am still able to talk to all of my friends from school over social media and Zoom, and can talk to them whenever I want. However I miss the simple things from being a freshman in college. I can’t roll into Russell late night with my roommate to get a bowl of cereal and ice cream at 11 pm. I can’t meet my friends after our classes and go to Mainstreet for a coffee. I can’t wake up to random construction noises right outside my window, or walk to my 8 am to the terrible smell of “Smelly Delly.” Even simple walks to class on a nice day where I have my headphones in and see my friends across The Green will definitely be missed.

I didn’t realize my last walk across the green was going to be my last walk for another few months. I didn’t realize that my last dinner with my friends was going to be my last for a while. And now here I am, sitting at my new desk in my room at home in quarantine. I feel like everything happened so suddenly and quickly, I didn’t have time to actually understand what was going on. This quick change in setting would probably explain me temporarily dying my hair purple for a week. Turns out dying your hair does not change anything going on in your life. Now here I am, playing five hours of Wii Tennis and Mario Kart by myself, with a terrible sleeping schedule and watching way too many Tik Toks. I don’t think my actions or behavior have really changed, but I think the hardest part about this time for me is not physically being away from home with a change of environment, and having half of my freshman college experience taken away.

I think the only things keeping me sane through this quarantine, are thinking about the moments when I first get back and knowing how great I will feel. It’s sad to say that a worldwide pandemic has made me realize that I definitely can’t take any of the little things for granted, knowing how easily it can all be taken away.