Before any paranoid moms see this on Facebook, no it is not actually an onion nor can you contract it from onions. Just a disclaimer.

Coronavirus is an onion because it has so many layers. When you get past one layer you just find more and each one makes you want to cry a little bit harder.

At first, the onion seems completely harmless. Back in January I remember saying these exact words, “It’s just like a flu or something, it’s not that bad, we will be fine.” Oh how wrong I was. When the first layer of an onion is peeled off, it’s really satisfying right? That’s what the cancellation of school was at first. In a few short weeks I’d come to find out how much I miss school. I was so excited to have a break, but I was acting like summer had started already. I downloaded this app called Yubo to pass the time. It was basically a place for random teenagers across the world to have a video group chat and make new friends while we were all bored. I also spent a lot of time texting friends and just chatting. My work even closed down so I truly had nothing to do. No one knew what was going to happen so it was really just a free for all. It seemed fine, there wasn’t many cases in America yet, the environment was clearing up, we seemed okay.

Eventually the juices from the next layer started to sting my eyes. The crazy Costco raids, the violence, the fear of even your neighbor, it seemed like the world was ending. I was so scared. My mom binge purchased so much food for no reason because she was legitimately afraid that we would run out of food or water. At this point school was deciding how to take place for the rest of the year and that is when I started to get really bad anxiety. I recently found that chewing gum helps with my anxiety. I also started to miss my friends a lot. It wasn’t enough to just text them anymore. It was becoming suffocating staying home all day.

At this point in the onion, it is getting hard to keep my eyes open. At least before we had hope that this situation would pass in just a few weeks. It’s not looking too good at this point. School is closed for the rest of the year. Actually, everything is closed. People are starting to get upset, some taking to the streets to protest the lock down. Tensions are high, people are arguing, we have no real leadership from the government. My mom and I were watching the broadcasts daily and there seemed to be nothing new for weeks besides petty political arguments. I’m a mess and I have no structure and a terrible sleep schedule. I don’t even know what day it is most of the time. Then Ramadan starts. For my family, we went all out this year. I spent hours and hours in the kitchen with my mom cooking some extravagant meals. It’s not like my mom had anything better to do. My uncle was coming over every other day because he got lonely in his house all by himself. It was nice, having family time and eating meals together for hours at a time everyday. However, this completely threw me off. I couldn’t keep up between fasting, cooking, family time, and my homework and other responsibilities. I fell really behind in school. I was really really struggling. My anxiety got even worse at this stage. Something that helped me was going on night drives. My uncle has a real nice car and let me drive down PCH for a long time one night. I felt like I could finally breathe again, at least for a little bit. My work had also opened up, which was a relief to have human interaction again, however so limited.

This next layer of the onion really sent the tears flowing across the world. Just as people started to get used to the life of COVID-19, George Floyd was murdered, and the world was upturned. Mass protests, widespread violence, intense arguments, intense racism, everything ugly came out. I got into a bit of an argument with a friend of mine because I called her out for social distancing. I had some difficult conversations with friends who didn’t understand all the layers of the BLM movement. Social distancing has basically gone out the window. Restrictions keep loosening up despite more and more people losing their lives every day. School wise, I was screwed. I had messed up so bad and got so behind in my AP Stats class. When it came time to take the AP test, I was unprepared and I did not do well on it. I wonder if I would have done well if I took it the normal way. I was upset for days after that. I wasted so much money, and lost an opportunity to save time in college. Also relating to college, I was signed up to take two college classes this summer. It is so difficult to communicate with people and get the answers you need via email. Things are changing, and quickly, and it seems everyday brings something new.

The onion still has a few layers left. I wonder what’s next. 2020 is the year for change. As scared as I am, I am extremely interested in seeing what is to come because I am genuinely hopeful that good things are coming after this. The world is going to have a new normal. Maybe this is the reset we needed. Maybe this onion is the main flavor of a delicious entree the universe is cooking up.