Marquette University Intimations Project

Elisa Magalang

16 days until quarantine and 7 days until I got the email from school. 

I remember it like it was yesterday. There I was sitting in the airport waiting for my flight. I was starting to get nervous because I am not the calmest on airplanes even though I have been riding them since I was 6 months old. I almost fell asleep waiting because the sun coming through the window was making me warm and cozy. Good thing my parents called to make sure that I was all settled at my gate. “Make sure you wash your hands before you eat,” they said, “coronavirus is going around.” It’s weird to think about. There I was sitting in an airport around hundreds of people. No masks. No face shields. No social distancing. Coronavirus was this small thing in the back of our minds and all I was told to do was wash my hands. Little did I know that in a week from today the whole world would flip upside down, but there I was eating popcorn I had bought from a vendor to settle my stomach. “An hour before the flight,” I thought, “time to take my anti-nausea medicine.” Panic starts to wash over me. I had none left. “Okay, okay, you’ll be fine,” I told myself, “you’ll be just fine. You’ve done this 100 times before.” I didn’t start getting motion sick until senior year, so I tried to tell myself that it will be just like before. As I started to board I got increasingly anxious. Once I sat down in my seat I took out a piece of gum to help me acclimate to the higher altitude and held on to the wrapper. I hate the smell of airplanes, so I always have to hold something that has a strong scent so I can smell that instead. It’s an airplane ritual I have had ever since I was little.

I have a huge smile on my face when I get off the flight, partially due to the relief of not getting motion sick and the other part due to being happy to be home. Little did I know I would soon be sick of being at home and I would do almost anything to get out. I could not wait to go to this new pizza place my mom had been talking about and since it was late we decided to go there straight from the airport. “We have to go wash our hands before we eat because of coronavirus,” my dad said as we sat down at our table. I could tell he was a little tense, but I really couldn’t tell why since I didn’t know that much about the soon to be pandemic. This specific memory always sticks out to me because looking back on it now my dad probably saw everything coming. He is a doctor and works in the hospitals around Columbus, so he probably got updates about what was going on. It also stands out because it was the last time I ate comfortably in a restaurant. During the pandemic I have eaten out once or twice, but I never felt fully at ease doing it. Even now that I am fully vaccinated I still feel anxious going to eat out. It feels illegal for some reason. Like I am doing something wrong. I guess for so long I was told that I would get COVID-19 if I went out to eat at a restaurant, so now that is engraved into my brain.

9 days until quarantine and the day I got the email from school. 

I was hanging out with some friends at my friend’s house because the colleges they went to decided pretty early that their students would have an extended spring break and then go online, so since we were all home for the first time in a while we were eager to see each other. “It’s kind of weird I haven’t heard anything back from Marquette yet,” I told my friend. Ding, I look down at my phone while playing Mario Kart and there is what I have been waiting for. It’s almost like I predicted it. “From March 23 through April 10, all instruction will be accomplished online.” Relief was the first thing I felt, which was weird. I liked Marquette as a freshman and I did not have any major problems, so why did I feel like a weight was lifted when I didn’t have to go back? At this point I obviously did not realize how hard the switch to online learning would be and how my motivation to do anything would plummet. Maybe I wasn’t ready to be home sick again. Maybe I felt like I had a better support system in Ohio. I texted my mom immediately and then told my friends. We went on talking about all of the things we could do with each other now that we were all going to be home for so long. It actually ended up being the last time I would see all my friends in one place for over a year. I don’t think we really understood that the fact that colleges were getting put online meant that the pandemic was getting really bad, so no one was really upset about it. It was also the last time I would talk to some of the people that were there. I think this pandemic made a lot of people’s social circles smaller. Not by choice, but because we needed to pick who we wanted to see and who we didn’t in order to keep our germ circles small, which caused some of my relationships to fizzle out. However, now that we are all vaccinated I hope that I can reconnect with some people.

1 day until quarantine. 

My mom and I rushed to the outlet malls for our last trip once it was announced that the stay at home order would go into effect that night. My mom and I are both busy bodies, so we knew that if we didn’t do something now we would be in agony. The mall was like a ghost town, which was weird for a nice spring day like that day. The shops were almost completely empty allowing the sales consultants to spend time on me, which is kind of my worst nightmare because I always get flustered when sales consultants come up to me. It’s funny to think that as soon as we heard that the quarantine was going into effect our first reaction was to go to the first place we could think of. If I was at home normally I probably would have spent most of my time relaxing at my house anyway to enjoy my time off, but as soon as I knew I didn’t have the option of going anywhere all of the sudden I needed to go somewhere. It was like when someone tells you that you have to sit still and all of the sudden you feel the urge to move. It also makes me laugh that we decided to go to a mall. We spent all of this money on clothes and shoes when we would be in the house for the next couple of months only wearing sweatpants and t-shirts. It was retail therapy I guess.

By the time quarantine started and the months after all I could think about is what I was losing. Getting to go to my cousin’s wedding, holiday traditions, seeing my grandma, spring semester of my freshman year. I was so angry for such a long time, but something I’ve realized through reflecting on the past year is that everyone lost something. We were all living our ordinary lives and all of the sudden we were thrown into something that will go down in the history books. Even though most of the time in quarantine I felt angry or in a funk, when I look back on it now I am somewhat thankful for the stay at home order, which is weird to admit. I never want to go through it again and I still wish it didn’t happen in the first place, but I learned so much about myself by being allowed to slow down and just think. I got to grow my relationship with my parents, I got to spend time focusing on my health and fitness, and I got to take time to take a real break from this fast paced world we live in. It showed me how fast life can change, so when you can be present and don’t sweat the small stuff. Also, I learned that there is no such thing as normal. If you asked me a year I would say wearing a mask everywhere you go is odd, but now I can’t imagine going to class or to the grocery store without a mask on. In the end I feel like quarantine and I had sort of a love-hate relationship.