A Change of Pace

Jam-packed days. Making fun, new memories. The hustle and bustle of walking around a big city.

That’s what life looked like for me two weeks before the coronavirus shut things down and classes were moved to online. During the first week of March, I was in New York City with my best friend for our last spring break of undergrad. Flash forward to the end of March, and the list above doesn’t come close to how I would describe what my days looked like.

Whereas my New York trip consisted of crossing off a list of sites to see and eating NY style pizza practically every day, quarantine was made up of safely staying home and having all of the days blend together like a large blob. It was a major change to be home 24/7; every so often, “isn’t there somewhere to be?” would pop in my mind.

I’m the type of person who likes to plan things out—my closest friends can confirm that I’m uptight about getting to places early. Clearly, I am not the most type B person around when it comes to my daily schedule. But having things be shut down, finishing college, and searching for employment have all pushed me to be more spontaneous with my day-to-day life because there is more room in my schedule. And by “more room,” I mean that my schedule is completely empty.

My “new” daily schedule contrasts that of my “old” one in most ways. Rather than have a 19 credit hour course load take up most of my time, I’m learning to embrace the slower moments in life as I do things like laze around with my boyfriend and have socially distant days at the river with him and his roommates.

The fast-paced city life is definitely for me, and I hope that one day I will be lucky enough to have that be a part of my life. There’s no way to know exactly what life is going to look like next year or even next week, but I do know that I want to keep embracing the quieter moments and the spontaneous plans they may bring.