“Then I start to hear people gossiping about the coronavirus in school, at home, on T.V, and everywhere. I didn’t really pay it too much attention…”
I started the past school year a normal teenage boy nearly finishing highschool with goals. I knew that I could achieve these goals like getting honor roll the entire school year and getting a job like these goals weren’t impossible to do. In the first half of my junior year, I did good like I planned it to go. I had honor roll twice in a row. In my junior year, I needed to have amazing grades because this is the year that colleges check your grades, test, everything, so I wanted my grades to be phenomenal. I was very happy I was on the move. My plans were going well from September to March. Half my junior year finished in March, my birthday month. I was turning 17 years old, almost 18 years old, so you know I had to get to that coin because people weren’t going to take care of me forever. So I started to apply for jobs. I started interviewing at many malls, just decent retail that was accepting 16 years olds because I love the mall. I like walking around shopping for cute clothes cause that’s the way I express myself through fashion, and I never had any desire to work at any fast food. I just know it’s not for me.
Then I start to hear people gossiping about the coronavirus in school, at home, on T.V, and everywhere. I didn’t really pay it too much attention because I didn’t know how much damage it could do to me and the world, so I just brushed it off. I try to avoid pessimistic things because that’s a way to keep my head up. Then a week later we find out all our schools are gonna be closed for two weeks. When I first heard this, I was not upset. I felt like I needed some time out of school because a lot of school work was becoming more difficult. Too many things on my mind were clustering up in my head, so I was low key happy we were getting some time off. Junior year is challenging enough, it’s not easy, so I was glad to have some time off. One day my moms call me, telling me to come to check my grades. I’m always nervous about checking my grades even when I know they’re good because I’m a very paranoid person, so I worry a lot when I saw my grades. Plus, I hate being overly confident without knowing for sure what’s gonna happen.
I was very upset. I was shattered. I started going off. I was just a mess.so I saw how terrible my grades were, and I began to get back on my go-getter mindset. I started completing all my work, just trying my best. I was already in a bad mood because I didn’t get the job I wanted, my grades were messed up, and I missed out on my seventeenth birthday. I felt myself falling deeper than I ever felt. I felt like the sky was falling into me. I hit rock bottom, I was completely lost, and it changed me. I became really quiet, nervous, just not me.
“I felt myself becoming depressed because I severely missed my dad and my friends.”
I would get into crazy arguments with my sisters and mom. Usually, I and my mom and sisters have good conversations, and we have a great relationship. Now, it’s just a lot of tension built up. I’m a very honest person. I like to say how I feel all the time, which I need to work on. When I say some things, it might come out the wrong way, so I guess that messed up my relationship with my sisters and mother at the time. I never knew how sensitive I was till now. My sisters and I would get into vicious arguments over the smallest things, from a sponge to taking a shower to do laundry. I use to barely get into fights. Now I’m the one that gets into crazy arguments. My mom wouldn’t let me see my father because of fear of catching the virus, so I was even madder. I couldn’t even see my dad or even my friends. I felt myself becoming depressed because I severely missed my dad and my friends.
“The trees were green and blooming and looked like they healed. It was beautiful. It was like me, and the earth healed together.”
At the end of quarter 3 of my junior year, I received my report card through emails, and I managed to have all As and Bs but one C+ I was very mad at. I know some people might say that’s not even bad. Still, I know I could do better and achieve better than that, so I was angry for a little, but I said I would better in the final quarter of the school year. It’s May, and it has been 2 months that i haven’t seen my father or friends in person or any of my family members, so I just felt hopeless. I wasn’t thinking optimistic at all like usual. Then George Floyd was murdered, and the world started going crazy. Everything started to come out, and people were waking up to racism. Riots and protests broke out, it was really just a mess. People began losing money. It was horrible. Not only did covid mess people up financially, but it made people have the confidence to protest to stop police brutality. I am a black gentleman in America, so it’s already hard for me to do certain things in life without being judged about my skin tone. So to see so many people fighting for equality was amazing. Even though it was good to watch now, I feel like I have to protect myself even more than I already have to because of that.
Sitting in the house with my siblings, getting into arguments made me stronger. It made me worry about more important things and not little things that could stress me out, so covid really made me a stronger person than I was. Still, at the end of the day, I’m grateful that I’m alive and strong, blessed, and smart through this crazy year, and so far, things are getting better. I feel like this is the longest year of my life it’s going by so slowly, I feel like. If I can go to school in September, I hope I don’t have Covid anxieties and that my stress levels aren’t high. I hope I can react differently to situations. But I definitely feel mature and stronger than before Covid, so that’s a good thing. I just hope the world can heal before this is over. I believe that people can get through anything if they have patience and just relax because our emotions can control us and overpower us. Still, we can get past it if we have patience. Around June, I walked outside for the first time to see my dad. The trees were green and blooming and looked like they healed. It was beautiful. It was like me, and the earth healed together.