Did I only have two weeks left being on campus before going home for Thanksgiving and the rest of the Fall 2020 semester?
Yes.
Did I have to spend those final two weeks in quarantine?
Yes.
Did I let this completely hinder my productivity and overall happiness?
No!
This weekend I move back onto my college campus to start the Spring 2021 semester. I am choosing to be on campus again because this will be the best way for me to stay focused and productive with my studies compared to staying home, and it will also give me the chance to safely socialize and be a part of the extracurriculars I love. As I come back after two months at home, I wanted to reflect on my last two weeks of my fall semester in-person, where I experienced a quarantine that I never thought I'd have to do. I was fortunate that although I had been exposed to someone with COVID-19, I never contracted a case, and felt healthy the entire time (although my hypochondria brought even the slightest head or body ache to worry me). It was both hard and easy at times, as I stared at my dry-erase calendar and crossed off the days as they went by. Since I pride myself in my ability to take this pandemic as seriously as possible, I wanted to show that the potential of being exposed to COVID-19 is high for ANYONE. None of us are special exceptions. Here are some ways I stayed sane (kinda) throughout my quarantine alone in a college dorm.
It was made known to me that I had potentially been in contact with someone positive for COVID-19. I stayed inside the whole weekend until my own test results came back. I got the call on a Monday morning, the Monday after the Presidential election. I was negative, but that someone was indeed positive. Then started a whirlwind of calls from public safety, the health office, and the city's dept. of health. I was frantically doing laundry, and packing just in case I was forced to quarantine in an asylum that was an empty dorm designated for quarantined students. I was not allowed to go home because multiple members of my household are immunocompromised, and even though I initially tested negative, incubation periods are different for everyone. Fortunately, I was allowed to stay in my room, as my roommate had gone home. I was able to stay in a space I felt relatively safe and happy in, but this didn't mean that there would be no challenges to come.
All I can remember from the rest of that Monday was being full of anxiety. I was scared for the person who had COVID. I was scared for my friends who also had to stay at school in their dorm rooms. I was also scared for own well-being, as I had made it almost 9 months since March without being infected, and had read the horror stories.
I was devastated crossing a day off my whiteboard calendar only to see 13 more to go. Two weeks have always seemed like a long span of time to me. But this was going to feel longer and lonelier than I could have ever imagined two weeks to be. It’s 1/2 a month. 1/24th of a whole year. 14 days. I, who had always been responsible and respectful during this Pandemic, was to be stuck inside while other students were at bars and sneaking into each others dorm buildings to be super-spreaders. Being mad at the others who were off the hook wasn't going to fix anything. I had to get through this knowing others affected by COVID had it so much worse.
Getting used to being around myself and myself only:
I don't say this to gain sympathy, but I am pretty used to being alone. I've never been a part of a large or busy friend group, and my weekends in High School were more often spent at home baking and watching movies than at a party (although I am no stranger to partying and sneaking back into my house, but no one needs to know about that). Other than close friends (or random guys/f-boys) hitting me up last minute to hang out, I was able to choose whether or not I wanted a night alone in my room, or a Friday after school with friends driving & listening to music, eating Carvel. This made my nights easier in quarantine. I am a natural introvert who can keep myself occupied, and I also had the advantage of social media and endless entertainment from my phone/laptop. And if I ever started to feel as though there was nothing new on Netflix to watch, and none of my celebrity crushes were live on Instagram, I put my screens down and learned to be okay with just being around myself.
Out of quarantine I was constantly looking for a distraction, a way to satisfy my fluctuating attention span. It took quarantine for me to realize that talking to myself (in a more therapeutic, less creepy way) helped me truly experience what I was feeling. I wrote down what I was experiencing in a "Quarantine Journal," so I could track any symptoms, but also see when I was feeling the most anxious, and what was the best method for calming me down. If it was sunny enough, I would just roll out my yoga mat and sunbath beneath my bay windows in silence, like a cat absorbing warmth from a window-sill. There was no one around to judge how I looked or what I was doing, so solo dance parties were a common occurrence. I didn't have to rush my showers or my beauty routine. I could pamper myself all day if I wanted, and really listen to what my body and mind needed from me, as there was no way for me to escape myself.
This does not mean however that I never got lonely, because I definitely did. My mental health is a constant battle I struggle with, and it's just as easy for me to fall into a tailspin of feeling sorry for myself and thinking nobody thinks I exist. My self-esteem has never been so low as it's been these past two years, and the added uncertainties of the Pandemic was just the cherry on top of the crisis cake. But I know it will get better, because I have enough trust in the process of working on my self-image which soon enough will radiate outwards.
In the confines of my dorm room, with the noises of other residents in the hallway to keep me conscious of the outside world, I knew that my friends were just a text or FaceTime away. My friends from other schools checked up on me all the time. I had a text group-chat with my friends who were also in quarantine, where we kept each other up to date on every symptom of concern, every TikTok worth a laugh, and every piece of celebrity gossip that amused us.
Staying Productive:
Fortunately, since the semester was coming to an end, I had plenty of things to do that were worth more than finishing a season of Downton Abbey or waiting for my next nauseating meal delivery.
In normal circumstances, I could've procrastinated every major school assignment, convincing myself that I had plenty of time to do it later, or that I had better things to do in the present. But in quarantine, I couldn't do that. The only purposeful things for me to accomplish were my school work, my extracurricular duties (virtually), and my internship search. From wake up to sundown I could be at my desk, with no distractions, and get some shiz done.
Did I slack off sometimes with the knowledge that some of my professors would sympathize with my current stressful situation? Sure. But I kept telling myself that this would be the only optimal time for me to work my butt off so that when I got home for the Holidays, I wouldn't have so much on my plate when real distractions (like my retail job, family or errands) got in the way. And I'm so happy I did. I had two final papers and a presentation due the day before Thanksgiving, and I finished them an entire week beforehand because I did it during quarantine. Although I wasn't in the right headspace to write and publish more for my blog, I wrote down every idea I thought of, so that in this new year I have a huge bank of content ready to be developed and shared, which makes me really happy.
Making food and exercise as exciting as I could:
My school is far from renowned for it's cuisine, so I was prepared for the worst when it came to delivered meals and snacks. I'll admit it was a tad better than the meals I saw from NYC college students in Quarantine at the start of the semester on Instagram/TikTok, but it still made me thankful for Grubhub and my Whole Foods deliveries via Amazon. Luckily I had a sink, so I could supplement the dismal 16-32oz worth of mini water bottles I received a day. By the end of the two weeks, I had a basket full of Nature Valley bars and small mealy apples I could not longer stomach. I bought and ate so much popcorn in 14 days that I couldn't even look at a kernel for weeks. Since I was expending so little energy inside my dorm, my appetite subsided drastically, which made me anxious that it could've been a symptom of COVID (fortunately it was not).
Something that was obviously disrupted was my exercise routine. Although the campus gyms had been closed, I was able to utilize the warm fall weather and my own equipment to go on runs and do my own outdoor workouts at least 4 times a week. Stuck inside, I just had to get creative. Walking back and forth in my dorm to get my steps in got real boring real quick. With my yoga mat, resistance bands, ankle weights, and jumprope, I looked up workout videos that I had never tried before, and my workouts became the most exhilarating part of my days. I incorporated a combination of yoga and meditation into each morning before class, which reentered my mind and calmed any anxieties I would have when professors inevitably talked about the pandemic.
The morning I was released from quarantine, I went on a long walk around campus. It was a cloudy, slightly chilly day, but I could feel every single dimmed ray of sunshine on my face. My body was so excited to be in fresh air that I ended up jogging, and then running at a fast pace around campus for 2 miles. I've never been a great runner, but I felt so amazing I never lost my breath. It was bliss.
Although quarantine in a dorm, with so many elements out of my control, did NOT help with my normal levels of anxiety and stress as a college student, I was ready for those 14 days of solitude. I knew that this was for my safety and the safety of everyone I cared about, which included the entire Fordham community. I was prepared to keep my physical and mental health my priority, and used that free time to get ahead on assignments, internship applications, and so much more. It felt very daunting at first, but just like every other challenge, you get through it, and it ends.
It obviously feels so frustrating when you take every precaution to avoid quarantine for that to be all thrown out the window with one phone call, but just like this entire year, nothing can be expected, and you just have to dive into it head first with gratitude that it isn't the worse-case-scenario. If the time comes when I have to quarantine again on campus this spring (due to contact tracing or otherwise), then I will look back at this very blog post to keep me going for round 2.
We should all be doing our part to get this pandemic under control finally, and that starts with the basics: masks, being socially distanced, and choosing to stay at home when you know you should, even when a vacation or night out seems way more fun. None of us want to harm ourselves or see the ones we love most be harmed by COVID, and at the end of the day, something as simple as a 14 day quarantine should be done without complaints but with peace of mind that you're doing the right thing. If you do get in this kind of situation where you are a student living alone, don't be afraid to reach out. College faculty, family, and friends will be there to support you even if it doesn't seem like it at first. Let them know when you need help. Trust me, they'll be there, just like you'd be there for them if tables were turned.
In conclusion, I am endlessly grateful for the staff at my school that made me feel so safe, secure, and cared for, as well as my friends staying in touch making sure I had everything I needed (even a roll of toilet paper).
I truly believe that I came out the other side of this quarantine as a better person.
~ Olivia Lorraine
