Hi, my name is Kendra and my life is kind of crazy (Tik-Tok reference, no? Okay.)
I packed up my entire life, quit my job, moved home, while still trying to stay COVID free, and do well in my classes. It was a rough start to semester to say the least. I was working a job I prayed that I got a few months before. A job I looked forward to all summer, planned how I was going to decorate my office, run staff meetings, and deal with crisis I just knew were going to happen. I was so excited, and then the world turned upside down, a world pandemic started, the Black Lives Matter Movement started. I was sent home the second half of my fourth semester, my summer internship got cancelled, then it was a waiting game to see if OSU went back in person. We did, and I knew it was going to be different, but I was still so excited to go back to the place I called Home.
After I was all moved in and comfortable, I realized, I wasn't comfortable. I was scared, nervous, anxiety-ridden, sad, lonely, anything you can think of. I couldn't focus on classes, I wasn't eating, showering, or fulfilling my job requirements. My staff suffered because of this, I wasn't giving them my attention like I should have been, and I could see it was impacting their work quality. I felt awful for me and for them and I knew something had to change. That was the moment that I realized that quitting and letting someone who could do better fill my position was the right option. I started researching apartments around me, but I quickly realized that I would never able to afford that, so I knew I could go home because all my classes were online. I started researching apartments in my hometown and realized there were very few for only one person. I reached out to a friend who also wanted to move home. Less than a week later we signed a lease, I turned in my 2 week notice and here we are a month later all moved in with new jobs, and a safe environment.
But this isn't how it was supposed to be. I was supposed to be sitting in my office late at night scheduling for the next week. I was supposed to be having late night movie sessions with my best friends. I was supposed to be running late to class because I HAD to have my coffee. Not walking out to the kitchen to make my own, seeing my friends only over facetime because I am 2 hours away, not asking my old staff how their new supervisor is doing. This isn't how it was supposed to be, but it is exactly how it is. I moved home, got a new job, and continued classes online. I feel like I actually have it together, even in the middle of a pandemic. I know there are things that we can't control, but there are so many things that we can as well.
College is weird. Life is weird. Sometimes we don't have control over what happens (obviously, the one thing 2020 has taught us). That doesn't mean that it has to stop there. I know a lot of people who are ready for 2021 to get here, and trust me, I am ready for a fresh start just as much as the next person, but just because 2021 rolls around doesn't mean covid is going to disappear, doesn't mean BLM is going to end. This is the world we live in now, this is our new normal, whatever that was before wasn't working, so we have to make some changes and that is okay.
Moral of the story; Life, School, Work, Relationships, etc. might get crazy, but I can promise you, that they will always work out in the end, if they haven't worked out yet, then it isn't the end.
