The Bright Side — What I’m Taking With Me After Quarantine, Graduation, and Beyond
As I write this blog post, I am sitting in the window seat of a plane on my way to North Carolina to stay with my sister and her two dogs. This is my first time flying in over a year, and it is certainly strange. On the bright side, I have the whole row to myself which would never have happened before COVID-19. I am sharing this because if I have learned anything from this pandemic, it is the importance of family, personal growth, and finding the bright side.
During this time, my only sister moved a 12-hour drive away and my parents sold my childhood home. There has been a great deal of change in my life in addition to the changes caused by COVID-19. My sister is no longer across the hall from me like she was growing up, and my house is no longer the home I grew up in for 21 years. It isn’t necessarily bad, just different. The one constant in this all, however, has been my family. While my sister isn’t across the hall, she is just a phone call away. While my house is no longer the home I grew up in, the furniture, people, and love within it is all the same. While my holidays were not spent with the extended family like they usually are, we used video conferencing to stay connected and have our own mini holiday celebrations together while apart. While it has all been challenging, my family has never failed to show up for me and for each other during this all.
So, as I fly to stay with my sister and her dogs for a few weeks, I find myself reflecting on how grateful I am for my family. They all know that this senior year of college is not what I anticipated, and they all have made attempts to make it better in ways (even if it was unintentional). My sister has invited me to come stay with her for a change of scenery and some warmer weather, my parents will have a glass of wine with me as we debrief about our days, my cousins will help me set up trivia games for our family zoom calls to add a little fun and excitement for us all. I have quickly learned that it is the little things that really matter and add up for me. I may have envisioned my senior year wildly different, but in all honesty, I have been able to spend time with my family and do other things I never would have if it wasn’t for remote work and school. I may not be living it up in the city, but instead I am getting in touch with my roots and figuring out what I really want once I graduate and decide what path I want to go down in my future. This time of self-reflection has allowed for a certain level of growth I didn’t know I needed.
Do I miss my friends? Yes. Do I wish we could go out for dinner and drinks in the city? Of course. But, I also know that the time for that will come. I think that my fellow classmates (both at my school or any other school) have been given a unique opportunity to grow, mature, and understand our values and what is most important to us in a way that many people aren’t able to until they are older. For that, I am grateful. As my final semester of college starts, I am looking forward to taking what I have learned about myself and putting it into practice as I graduate, start my career, and spread my wings a bit more than ever before.
