Friends & Family
A picture of brownies made by my sisters, taken March 30.
The biggest change for me during the pandemic has definitely been being at home for most of the day, every day. Both of my parents are working from home, my sisters and I are all doing remote learning, and my brother is home from university, so I have had to interact with my family a lot more. This has definitely been something I’ve had to get used to, because before I would be at school for at least 7 hours per day and not see my family at all during that time.
Spending all my time at home has had pros and cons. My family has definitely been spending a lot more time together, and my sisters have even been using their extra time at home to do more baking. (For example, they baked the brownies in the picture.) However, because we were not used to being around each other all the time, things have gotten a bit tense at times, and sometimes I wish that I could go places like coffee shops or the library just to get out of the house and see people other than my family. However, I am definitely lucky to have my own room and a good amount of privacy, as well as the ability to go outside and take a walk whenever I want. Aside from having to be at home all the time, my family has been pretty lucky to not be affected by the pandemic in any huge ways. None of us have gotten sick, thankfully, and both my parents have jobs that can be done from home, so we don’t have to worry about money. Other people that I know haven’t been so lucky.
My relationships with my school friends has definitely been a different story. Since I already did not text my friends a lot before the pandemic, we haven’t been texting much at all since school closed. Since texting or phone calls are basically our only method of communication now, I don’t interact with them much anymore. This kind of makes me wonder what our relationship will be like if/when we do go back to school in-person.
Overall, I think the stress of the pandemic has definitely affected my relationships with friends and family a fair amount. I don’t think this pandemic has really made me much closer to my friends and family. Hopefully, once things go back to normal, the stress will be gone and I will be able to interact normally with my friends and family again.
Submitted by Emmy Gallagher, Santa Clara County – Palo Alto.
Editor’s Note: This is one of a series. The links to all four parts are: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.