Nearly eleven months ago, whispers in the news indicated that a novel illness was spreading across the globe—more commonly known as,
“The coronavirus.”
Little did I know one phrase would dictate the course of my life for the next year.
On March 12th, 2020, my eight roommates and I received one fateful email—one that would send us packing, back home into a life under our parent’s roofs which we had barely escaped.
“Only until April,” the school claimed, but the spring showers turned into summer heat waves, and the message remained the same: “You cannot return.”
Before the events of that day in March, the word “quarantine” had barely graced my library, but all of a sudden it was broadcasted on every screen, in every newspaper, and hung on everybody’s lips.
“You must quarantine for 14 days upon your return from anywhere to slow the spread.” But 14 days grew into months, and the two earliest symptoms of the virus expanded to 20 symptoms as the coronavirus was declared a “national pandemic” by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Two-thousand nineteen was when it first made its appearance in Wuhan, China, but it rapidly spread—to 19 other countries, in 19 different states, then 19 cities—until 19 people you knew had the virus.
Nobody wanted schools to close,
nobody wanted to see their favorite, centuries old, local business get boarded up because the economy shut down,
and nobody wanted to wear a mask every time they left the house, entered the grocery store, or visited with a loved one.
But nobody wanted the U.S. to lose half a million lives to a pandemic.
Such is the reality of the coronavirus—
It knows no love, race, religion, gender, or boundary.
And just when you thought there were not enough anxiety-inducing news headlines to send you into a panic,
there always seemed to be something new around the corner.
But on the horizon was something more hopeful than we could have ever imagined—
and a year later, the world has begun to awake again, bursting with the promise of a new tomorrow.