Growing Closer, then Farther
a personal account of the COVID-19 Pandemic
While the COVID-19 pandemic was extremely tragic, it seemed to influence my life in many positive yet surprising ways:
The time I spent locked away in my house allowed me to grow closer to my cousins, more specifically Jackson.
Our inability to interact in person gave us an unexpected opportunity to spend more time together over FaceTime. Whether it was to work on school assignments, play Minecraft, and Brawl Stars, or cook together, Jackson and I would be on call. It seemed that the only time we were apart was when we were sleeping.
I still remember our first sleepover after the pandemic hit. We camped out in separate tents and watched The Nightmare Before Christmas in my garage. What impacted me the most was how I seemed to feel more connected to him over the phone than I did in person. This was our “new normal.”
Later in the year, we had another sleepover. I vividly remember biking around his neighborhood together and being able to sleep inside. It was so exciting that we actually got to hang out like we used to.
We had become best friends.
Now, the separation the pandemic caused didn’t just have positive effects. While I grew closer to Jackson, I didn’t really get to see his mom, who sadly passed away at the beginning of February 2021. Because I only got to see her a couple of times in the last year, I seemed to have only mere fond memories of her to cherish.
The thing that really struck me was that I was the first person Jackson had tried to call when it was happening. I was on my way to school and had missed his call. Immediately after it happened, he was always asking me to sleep at his house, which I did quite frequently.
Since his mom passed though, he’s grown farther away and won’t even answer my texts anymore.
It’s unbelievable the difference three years can make. I now find myself longing to go back to 2020 when separation is what kept us together.
