Let's go back to March of 2020 when it all started. I remember the day we went into lockdown like it was yesterday. I didn’t go to school that day or two days before, because I was very sick. I remember I was in bed watching TV, when my parents entered my room to show me an email, stating how we had an extra week off school. Being so excited; texted my friends we weren’t going to attend school for the next two weeks. I thought this wasn’t too big of a deal, and thought everything would be normal when Spring Break was over. 

A few days later when I was feeling better, I texted my friends we should all visit someone's house throughout Spring Break.

“Guys we should go to one of our houses during quarantine -- at least one day” I said in the group chat to my friends. 

“Hmm,” one responded. 

“I would like to, but my parents don’t want anyone coming in, or out of the house right now” responded one of my friends. 

“Same”

When spring break was over, I realized how bad it was, because everything started getting cancelled. Schools and concerts were closed for longer. My confirmation I had to do in the beginning of April. My grandparents couldn’t even come back here from Mexico because the borders got closed. 

“I just found out we don’t have school for the rest of the year.”

“Physical school no, online school yes.” One responded 

“Yea and I didn’t even know until now.”

“They sent an email last week.”

Those first three months were the hardest. We were home all day, and the only time we would go out was to drive around places, so we wouldn’t just be home all day. It was worse, because I started feeling like I couldn’t talk to my friends as often anymore.

“Aww bro not going to lie I feel we are falling off.” mentioned one of my friends.

“Me too, that's why I keep saying we should facetime or talk more often.”

“I have noticed that too that we don’t talk anymore as often, and it’s kinda sad.”

It was something my friends and I would alway discuss in the beginning of quarantine because they all wanted more time to themselves and were always busy with homework or doing chores around the house.

“Yep we should facetime.”

“Yes I can right now.”

“ I can’t right now, but everyday after 3pm I am available most of the time.”

Everything had just gotten worse with the pandemic and we started to see more and more cases everyday. Everyday feeling the same as if I was reliving it over and over. Wake up, go to school, eat, do homework, sleep. It was all so repetitive and tiring. 

Fast forward to my birthday at the end of May, the first time in 3 months I got to see my close family in person. Sadly, my grandparents still couldn’t come back from Mexico, so we just facetimed -- that day felt pretty normal. We would always see each other at least once a week before the pandemic started, and seeing them again for the first time felt like everything was back to normal. After my birthday, we started seeing each other more often like the way it used to be. Then a little later in summer, my grandparents were finally able to come back, and we were able to go visit them again more often, since  we were all following health precautions and the only people we were seeing was each other. Everything started feeling a little more normal with my family, until the middle of summer when I heard the news. My dad had gone riding his bike in the mountains, and was going too fast, and he ended up falling, and breaking a few ribs and a bone near his shoulder. For the next two months, it was the same thing from the beginning of the pandemic: not going out at all and this time we couldn’t even go out driving to see nice places; the only time someone would go out was my mom when we needed groceries. Luckily my close aunts and uncles would come and visit often and that would be fun for all of us.

It’s now August and we are starting school again. There were still a lot of covid cases so we still did online classes but this time it was different than last time because everything was more thought out on how we were going to do classes online. At first I thought it was going to be hard but it was, however, not as much as I thought. This year I feel I have been doing my best in all the time I’ve been at school. It was still sad though we didn’t go in person because we missed so many things especially since this is our junior year.

Now where we are. I still don’t go out too much but I see my close family members almost every week and if not every other two weeks which is good for all of us. My friends I got to see three times in this whole year of being in a pandemic but hopefully I’ll be able to see them again soon. School has been very good for me. I have been working extra hard this year to keep the 4 point GPA this school year.  Things are slowly going back to normal which is good. This has made me start feeling better about things  again because if things continue getting better, I can start seeing my friends and family more.