Ten days into 2020, I turned 21 years old. Four days later, I was flying to Italy to begin my semester abroad. Just two weeks later, my host mom, whom I had known all of a week, told me that 2020 would be the best year of my life. Boy, was she wrong! 

Obviously, the COVID-19 pandemic has taken many lives and caused extreme stress across our country. For all those who have lost someone close to them, I apologize. This article is not meant to diminish the memories you created with this person or these people, nor is it meant to lessen the grief of losing a loved one. Instead, I want this article to challenge the way we understand the struggles in our lives. Because I, like many others, did not have the year I expected to. 

I studied abroad in spring 2020 in Florence, Italy. Just six weeks into my dream, COVID-19 first ruined my plans. My program got shut down. Within a week,  to leave the new friends I made, the family I lived with and all my plans behind. Dublin for St. Patrick’s Day. Barcelona over spring break. The backpacking trip spanning six countries and three weeks with my roommates. My opportunity to study abroad was gone before I ever could truly capitalize on it. 

So, like many other students, I returned to the U.S., assuming that life would return to normal.  then the pandemic followed me here. The internship I had aspired to have and had gotten was pulled from my grasp, and more plans went to the wayside. 

I, like many others, faced mental health challenges. I dealt with depression, self-hate and anxiety. I faced difficult questions about if I should go out and socialize. Did my need to socialize for my mental health outweigh my moral obligation to do what is right for the country and for those who are at risk? 

I returned to Boulder hoping that the school that I had now known for three years would be the same as I left it. That my last year would be the best in my life. That my three previous years were building up to this one last year. I, like so many others, found that not to be true. 

So how can I be thankful for this pandemic? 

I’m not, but I am thankful for what the pandemic has taught me about myself and about what is important in life. I recently read an article that describes how most college students and those who have graduated college have already spent around 90% of the time they will spend with their parents. Meaning this: Of all the time I will spend with my parents in my life, I have already spent 90% of it, if not more. 

So rather than thinking about how I could have been gallivanting all over Europe this past spring and summer, I focused on the time I got to spend cooking with my mom or playing darts with my dad or playing video games with my brother or taking my dog on a walk or watching family movies. Of the last 10% I will get to spend with my parents. 

[layerslider id=”12″]