When Covid-19 swept across the U.S. in March of this year, I had just turned 19 and was looking forward to savoring one final year of being still technically a teenager before I headed off to my 20s and officially became an old man. I say that sarcastically of course, but being in quarantine in the middle of a global pandemic wasn't quite what I had in mind going into that year.
Luckily, I was able to finish my first year at college strong with a lot of support from my family, but the summer of 2020 felt like a more massive problem than college ever did.
My emotional health was in steady decline throughout much of the spring of 2020, and I knew that without school to distract me, the summer was going to be rough.
Indeed, May was a bit of a disaster. Like most of us, I got bored easily in quarantine. When that happened, anxiety rushed in to fill that void and turned boredom into despair, turning each day into a seemingly infinite block of time that filled me with more and more existential dread.
June was my turning point. I had an awesome conversation with my best friend, who really slapped some sense into me. Essentially, she made me realize what should have been obvious: I had ignored my own well being and had stagnated during a time when I needed to grow the most. If I wanted to feel better with myself and the future, I needed to get to know and learn to love the real me, who was itching to come out.
I started picking up some of the hobbies I'd had as a young kid - mostly reading fiction and looking up cool facts about space that 7-year old me would have loved. Side note: my personal favorite was about this awesome black hole. I also made a focused effort to work through the emotions that had been troubling me during the past few months through journaling.
As time passed, I started feeling better - I was making solid progress on my emotional health and was enjoying the free time I spent on things I enjoyed engaging with. I gradually expanded my horizons over time, adding a few philosophy books I'd been meaning to get to, borrowing my sister's art supplies to try my hand at painting, reviving my old Duolingo account to learn Spanish, and returning to creative writing after having dropped it for the better part of a year.
While some of these didn't turn out as great as I'd hoped, (it turns out my painting and drawing skills are both limited to stick figures) I still thoroughly enjoyed the process of exploring new activities the old me either left by the wayside or never would've thought to try. I learned a lot about myself this summer, and it was certainly because I jumped headfirst into the interesting hobbies quarantine had to offer.
If there was one thing I'll take with me from this past summer, it's this: if you want to try something new or shake things up just because you think you'll enjoy it, it's totally worth it! More than that, you're worth the time and effort you'll put into that hobby to make you happy. You don't need an excuse to do explore your interests or any reason other than that you want to.
That's the beauty of being a piece of unshaped clay; you get to decide what you want to be and how you want to get there.
So go for it! Expand your horizons! Live that experience you never thought you could! You'll love yourself more for it, and that makes all the difference.