transitioning into the unknown

It’s been a while since I’ve posted. I can say that much has changed in these past few months. This will be the first post of my new series called “Transitioning into the Unknown.” Honestly, the past year has been a lot of change and transitioning. In June of last year, I moved from a suburb in Atlanta, Georgia to bright and sunny San Diego, California. It was a big transition for my family, but we all couldn’t be happier. Now, there is a worldwide pandemic going on. I want to make this particular post about transitions because we all are having to adjust our every day lives and it’s not exactly a smooth process.

I am just a teenager, so one might think, “What does she know?” That’s a valid question because really, what do I know? Well, I know that for my family, we’ve had to adjust to living around each other all day, every day. We’ve become bored and stressed. We’ve also become more grateful and closer as a family. Let’s face it, watching tv and scrolling through Instagram and TikTok all day gets old eminently fast. We’ve had to find alternatives to keep us busy during days that seem twice as long. It’s challenging when most of us are at our homes with the occasional drive to the grocery for necessities. Even then, there’s practically no one on the streets and in stores. Our country and many others are on lockdown. It’s as if the world, as we know it, has shut down. All of our favorite stores and restaurants have closed, we fear catching a deadly virus through people, packages, and even the air. The one amazing thing that comes out of a crisis situation like this is we all come together and form into the united nation we should be. We aren’t necessarily together in person, but we are working together. Many bars, etc are using alcohol and aloe to make hand sanitizer. People are sewing masks together every day. In fact, one company, General Motors, is making 50,000 masks a day. Doctors and nurses are working countless hours on the front lines due to the thousands of patients pouring in every day. My point is, through these incredibly horrific times, we all become unified and work together.

We also tend to have a different perspective. Personally, I notice things I didn’t before such as: how lucky I am to have a beautiful day with sunshine and breeze, how much I depend on my social life and how closed off I feel when I cannot see my friends in person, how I really do appreciate school and how it gets me out of my house and gives me time to see my friends, etc. I also notice how much free time I now have, which is a blessing and a curse! I have more time to do some things I never really had time for when I was in school. At first, I was FaceTiming friends constantly and bingeing Netflix all day, but that quickly became boring. I have always been a very artistic person and I have started to do more crafts and draw in coloring books, experiment with food and bake a lot with my mom. I also made some playlists for different moods. These are all ways to pass the extensive free time available.

Ultimately, this free time has been a bit of a self detox for me and overall, I have been stress-free. Although, these are crazy times, there are still things that can be found and appreciated. I’ve enjoyed “re-connecting” with my family because I was getting too caught up in my social life, as we all do from time to time. My Spring Break was last week and I realized just how much stress I was receiving from school. It is not easy working from home and with the emails pouring in every day, I felt very overwhelmed. Right now, we all feel overwhelmed for one reason or another and that’s okay. I think the best thing we cam do is try to live in the present and take things one day at a time because we really don’t know what the future holds. We also have things that take the stress off of our minds and I encourage you to find out what those things are and utilize them! I have some examples that work for me, but everyone is different:

☆ Listening to music (I highly suggest making a playlist for certain moods).

☆ Crafting or really anything artistic.

☆ Talking to friends, but avoiding the subject of stress.

☆ Going outside for a walk to clear my mind and get some sunshine. I have found getting a workout in and moving my body puts me in a more positive mentality.

Use this time as a reset and really focus on figuring out your priorities and think outside of the box in ways that you can help others through this and how you can keep yourself busy. We are all going through change, but we don’t have to do it alone.

Stay safe and wash your hands!

Enjoy this? Read the next post in the series: the sun will shine again