Looking back to how a year ago the whole pandemic started and we all were told to go into quarantine, I can't help but wonder how time has passed so much ever since then. It feels like it was only a couple weeks ago since the whole quarantine started. But to say that it has already been a year, is quite astounding.

Normally, I'm the type of person who lives under a tree stump and isn't fazed by special dates on the calendar, milestones. But the COVID-19 pandemic has made me think differently about those things. Maybe it's because this event has affected all of us for such a prolonged amount of time, where we forgot that there was life before the whole pandemic started.

It's not that I necessarily so strongly despise the fact that it has been a year since the quarantine has begun, but more so I miss the way life was before the pandemic and the quarantine has even started. There's a part of me that wishes to time travel back to 2019 where things were more "normal". But now, the definition of normal isn't so normal itself. What is normal to us now, is what has been normal for the past year.

I miss seeing my friends, being able to walk around campus without having to worry about possibly contracting a virus, being able to sit in a dining hall. I miss everything. But I realized that just missing everything and feeling nostalgic for life before COVID-19 isn't necessarily the best thing to do. The more nostalgia I feel, the more I feel there is an urgency for things to have to change immediately. Although this is the truth, just bombarding myself with the truth multiple times, doesn't seem to necessarily get me anywhere. So I decided to take a different approach and look back on the memories I have made and new experiences I have had since living in this "bubble" called quarantine. No matter how hard I try to pop this "bubble," it won't burst open just yet, so might as well make the most out of it until it finally decides to burst open.

I think the quarantine is like a huge "bubble" surrounding everyone. It is made out of rubbery, elastic material so no matter how hard we try to pull the bubble or open it, it will only just flinch right back at us. The bubble is also very smooth and rubbery. It's not necessarily the surrounding material of the bubble that is annoying us, but the fact that it is just so risky and difficult to escape out of the bubble. The thing with the bubble is that if we do happen to pop it open somehow, it will burst really sporadically and we will just fall 6ft to the ground, not knowing where we will end up. That is also how mysterious the aftermath of the pandemic and quarantine will end up being like. We can't really expect it to be a certain way until the time comes.

I have felt desperate in this bubble for a long time. Hoping to find a way that will set me free from its elastic material and rubbery contour. But I am also scared of where I will end up once I get out of the bubble. I have been in the bubble for a long time and have gotten so accustomed to it, I can't imagine what life would be like outside of it.