Written by Jessica Ryan, one of our wonderful bloggers.
This year I started uni doing Agriculture Business. After coming home from boarding school at the end of October when I finished Year 12, moving out again in February for uni, to be frank, was a relief. I love my parents, but boarding school gives you that element of independence and eventually I felt like I had already moved out. So, four months at home before uni started was the longest I had spent in my parents’ house for a few years. However, with corona gaining a rather large presence in our lives I am back home and let me tell you it is tough.
I am the sort of person who needs the company of others, yet at the same time, I also fear social events. We all get anxious about going out. You know, “Is what I’m wearing appropriate?”, “Am I overdressed?”, “Am I underdressed?”, “Should I wear makeup?”, “Hair up or down?” I wouldn’t believe you if you said you didn’t think of at least one of these things before you went out. I also feel with being a girl, if we aren’t dressed appropriately or if someone mentions our outfit is different from the rest, 9 times out of 10 we find ourselves apologising for what we chose to wear or even defending our choices – I know I do. Every time someone mentions me wearing my RM’s to the pub with a denim skirt, or even with a dress I wore to the races once I got sick of wearing heels, for some reason I’m defending my choice.
My RM’s are a part of who I am. Who I am is a small town girl off a farm, and I am a girl who isn’t always coping with isolation. Some days I have sat at my desk, stared out the window and cried. I even find myself deleting social media apps. A lot of people are saying that social media is meant to be helping us all feel closer during this time; the older generations are saying how much easier it is with all this technology to stay connected during iso. Yet I feel further away, I feel like social media is distancing me further away from my friends. I put up quotes in my room reminding me of who I am, the things to be grateful for and even tips and tricks for coping and things to do when I’m procrastinating work and study.
So really, what is coping with corona? Is it choosing to live with your friends, is it choosing to be in denial and carrying on driving around seeing people, is it locking yourself in your house and choosing to bulk buy toilet paper and pasta? For me it’s getting groceries for my grandparents who are at greater risk from venturing out during this time. It’s going and getting their mail, not seeing any of my friends because I can’t if I want to be living with my father, who has pneumonia, and seeing my grandparents on one of our farms who both have their own high-risk measures. I am part of a family who is at a high risk when it comes to corona, we can’t put ourselves in a position to catch the virus. This became a time where I had to choose between blood and water. I can’t stay with my family if I want to carry on seeing friends and other people I socialise with, even with the easing of restrictions. Our risk doesn’t change.
At the end of each day I list everything I’m grateful for, everything good that happened in my day. I make sure I play music that isn’t sad, and I always say goodnight to my family. Through this time, it is so easy to focus on the bad, to get distracted by the negatives around you and forget that the flowers still bloom in the garden, the birds still chirp, ewes still give birth, puppies are still for sale and the family dinner table is still there. Although I’ll be honest, when I get a call from my classmates about something boring like lectures it makes my day and we chat over a cuppa on Facetime.
So, ring that person you were best friends with in primary school who you may or may not have spoken to in years. Send a message to a family member and make sure they are doing alright too. Even if you ask 30 people how they are and only 5 people return the favour, don’t worry about the 25 who didn’t. Worry about those 5 who did. Because to them, you matter. Reach out to your friends if you aren’t coping, because I know I would rather hear my friends complain everyday about corona or their siblings instead of having them suffer in silence believing no one cares. Especially if all they needed was someone to hear them complain to know that they aren’t alone.