If we were to weigh the good and bad impacts of these times during COVID-19, the negatives would sink to the bottom for sure. But there are so many small things at home that I appreciate much more because they kept me alive. It’s not easy looking forward to each day, especially now that we have online school, since it’s just work all the time. Then we end up pushing all of our leisure time to the weekends. I don’t want to live 5 days unsatisfied each week and then finally get to take a brief mental break on the weekends. So I started investing more time in some of the activities that brought me joy, just for a little bit each week.

I’ve only recently been starting to get into art and it’s really fun to be in control of all of your creations. There really is no pressure in drawing and I enjoy getting to completely zone out whenever I start sketching (getting lost in the sauce, if you will). Same goes for piano; I haven’t played in months, but I finally got the opportunity to learn a soothing piece by Yiruma for my band class! It’s much more fun being able to pick out a piece and interpreting it in my own way instead of playing it according to my previous piano teacher’s liking. I’m very glad for this chance to learn my own solo because it made me realize how much I missed letting loose whenever I played this instrument.

It’s a different feeling of excitement when you get to see the growth of your plants. An example of that would be my hydrangea flowers that finally started to turn a bright purple! Seeing flowers bloom brings a warm feeling in my heart as if I raised my own child. For way too long they had been left without good care. It’s the same with my custard apple trees, but now my family is seeing way more fruits on those trees (compared to previous summers) since there’s so much time on our hands to look after them more.

One more small thing that I got to appreciate over quarantine was that I was still able to make new friends. I got to really bond with an older friend in band which I never expected to happen. Plus I’ve made some more friends on discord to play games with them. All in all, thanks to these small delights I was able to keep myself occupied and content throughout quarantine. You don’t always have to force yourself to stay optimistic and wait for the moment we get back to school, because you can definitely appreciate the time now to notice some small pockets of happiness at home.