Lucia Faraci
I remember thinking it was a joke. I was laying in my bed, scrolling through Twitter. It was February. I saw someone post this virus coming to hit us. But it’s Twitter. People talk crazy on there, that is what makes it so much fun. No one takes that app serious. So, when I saw this news, I brushed it off. I didn’t take it seriously. As time went on, I know I should have.
My dad starts talking to me about it in March. Damn, so now my dad knows? This might be more serious than I thought. I remember him telling me to be careful while I go on spring break with my friends. I laughed in his face. In Florida, no one was seeming to take it seriously. We would go to bars where you couldn’t even move. Everyone breathing on each other, sweating, dancing, etc. It was Covid central at the time, but no one knew that. I stayed in Florida to go see my boyfriend. After that, it seemed to all go downhill.
It was on the news. People were starting to worry. I started to panic. The world started to panic. No one really knew what to expect. I thought it was going to blow over. I thought it wasn’t going to be that big of a deal. School would still be fine. The scientists will find a cure to this in no time. It was almost embarrassing with how wrong I was. I think the lockdown was the worst. I think it was so hard because being away at school for two years and then coming back home, makes you lose an independence you gained on your own. You lost the social life it took you so long to make at a school you knew no one from high school was going too. You finally had your friends. Suddenly, it was just all taken away. Zoom started. It became one of the biggest things in the world. It was the only source of big calls of communication. I distinctly remember having to zoom for my friend’s 21st in Boston. I remember thinking how much that sucked. I remember how horrible she must have felt during that time, celebrating alone. We wait for our 21st birthday like it is a holiday. I couldn’t imagine that. This was in April. I celebrated my 21st birthday at home because nothing was open. This was December.
Things went downhill after April. Everyone was in a rut. It seemed like no one was themselves. My boyfriend and I broke up, I don’t think I have ever gone this long without seeing my best friend, and I started painting. I found out I am not a good painter. I tried, though. It turned chaotic. People were preparing for the worst. It seemed like the worst was happening with what people were doing. The shelves on stores being completely cleared, fighting for the last roll of toilet paper. People were ruthless, fighting to get the supplies they needed. It seemed like a zombie apocalypse was about to happen.
The worst was school. I live in a house now on campus. I moved there in the summer. The first party I go too, I find out the next day I got the virus. Soon enough, everyone started to get it. It spread like wildfire across campus. I knew what that meant. No school. So much for an extended Spring break. Zoom classes were the worst. I was completing my junior year through a computer screen. This was the year I was supposed to have an internship, the year I was supposed to be in a classroom, one of the last two years I was supposed to make the most out of my college experience. I am now going to be a senior. I feel like I really missed a year of fun. I am hoping things start to change so I can get my life back.
Marquette University Intimations Project 
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