With only a few short weeks of school left until summer “vacation.” We will also be coming forth with our three months in quarantine. Even then, we still have three months of summer vacation. A total of six months away. Six months to see our friends. Six months from seeing our favorite teachers.

Six months to reflect on ourselves. And we’re already half-way there.

Being of slightly higher risk than most other students, I spent these almost three months inside my house. Helping out my grandparents. Cramming on assignments my teachers are… strangely spilling out on the same say with the same due date. Scrolling aimlessly through social media, seeing every other teen my age hanging out with one another or playing at the beach.

Having no place but my home and my phone to thew outside world, the quarantine has made me feel a sense of loneliness.

I’ve realized I took everyday at school for granted. Being able to see my friends, laugh at stupid jokes together, fool around at lunch, hugging them. Seeing my teachers all five days of the week for an hour, learning in a face to face environment, chatting and getting to know them during the free times of class, directly asking questions.

The harshness of due dates and the hold harmless agenda washed a sense of relief into me. I can do things at my own pace without the anxiety of point deduction of lateness. However, it makes me feel guilty. Pushing back assignments to do others. Pushing the ones I consider “less important” than others all the way to the end of my to-do list as my teachers patiently wait for me to complete them. It gives me a sense of guilt that I’m not up to my A-game as I was before.

It makes me feel like I should just give up on the rest of the school year. My grades were perfectly fine before quarantine, so what’s the point in learning? Why should I continue being anxious to do my work when my grade can’t get any lower.

For the past three months, I felt lonely… and even more single than I already do. As I see my friends laughing, care-free about this quarantine, I lie awake at night wishing it was over. Wishing I could join my friends in these wild adventures they talk about going on once we’re all allowed to go out. Liking pictures on Instagram of them snuggling up with their loved ones during this time.

One guy I saw on social media on his “Day 50” of getting boba during this quarantine… is he okay? I would absolutely whipped by now with all that milk tea.

I find myself daydreaming or spacing out a lot, imagining a future that feels impossible in this time. Room-mating with a bunch of my best friends when we finish school and can move out. Falling in love with someone that can be my friend first before anything else. Living in a magical world like the ones in Harry Potter or even Pokemon. Finding different ways to escape from these depressing realities of our lives right now.

Every day just feels short and on repeat for me. I feel weary and on edge. I hate how I wake up in the morning with a sore throat and stuffy nose, how my muscles and bones are sore from hours of sitting at my desk or laying on my bed and working.

How physical touching of others is not allowed at this time. Of how I can’t talk or see my friends or classmates everyday in person as I use, with a digital barrier with the ones I can.

But with all the sadness that have been felt. I have learned through this quarantine the beauties of myself and life-advice I will take on through my future. That self-care should come before any other task. A hopefulness like nothing I’ve felt before.

I’ve learned that hypnosis videos are really relaxing. Even if they don’t “make you forget your name” or “make you see in only black and white” as they swear they can make you do, closing your eyes and letting yourself loose from tension for thirty minutes with a common voice + music playing around you really is an experience. It helps with getting rid of the stress pounding around in your mind and your muscles begin to loosen up,

I’ve learned that I can never get tired of my favorite books. The Hunger Games trilogy, Harry Potter, The Bell Jar, and the Alchemist just to name a few. If you can’t daydream to escape from reality, join someone’s dream world for a few hundred pages.

I’ve learned it’s okay to open up to people and to vulnerable. The friends I’ve made in high school really are great people so far. I found students who have gone through the same experiences as I have and even have common interests we can talk for hours about. I’ve been known to bottle up my feelings, but with people I can trust, I can finally spill them all out as they spill theirs to me too.

I’ve started to write my daydreams down. Telling them to my friends so we can promise to try and make these futures come true. Hoping and jittering for those days to finally arrive. I even started to plan and write a story of my own. Letting my creative juices run free and being able to show my friends my work.

I finally came to terms with a nonexistent monster that has been sitting and bugging me in the back of my head. It was about a friend I had three years ago with a toxic friendship break-up experience. I was never able to put into words how I felt about it. Until recently when I woke up from a nightmare of them and finally formulated it word for word as I was baking potatoes in the morning.

I’ve learned that I shouldn’t just fall for a boy just because he treats me nicer than all my other guy friends do. There’s more to loving someone other than their generosity. There’s more to it. Putting friendship first before relationship. Being comfortable with hours of silence, not needing to talk to enjoy each other, just relaxing in each other’s presence.

Most importantly, I’ve learned that I should learn to love myself before I can fall in love with someone. That giving the person in the mirror everything they need is the foremost as giving your loved one everything they need too. You need to find the confidence in yourself that you don’t always need vocal validation from someone else 24/7. To learn and understand how to fall in love with yourself if that’s what someone is going to fall in love with.