Over the past week, I have documented what I’ve done during this entire isolation period. There have been numerous ups and downs to being forced to stay at home. I found many new hobbies to take up some of my spare time and found some creative ways to keep all of us at home entertained. This is how I practice social distancing.

Monday, March 30

I started making a list of what I wanted to get done each day just so I’d have an idea of what I wanted to accomplish with all of this extra time I seemed to have on my hands. I made a new music playlist filled with my favorite indie/alternative songs that I can play throughout the day to make me more productive around the house and in doing my schoolwork. I also picked up a few things on the acoustic guitar to keep my sister, London, and me entertained. 

Keeping in touch with your friends is harder than it seems considering you all have separate things to do at separate times. We found a way to all stay in contact with each other using an app called “Houseparty,” which allows you to Facetime multiple people through the app and you can all play the interactive games that the app provides, like trivia. We all made the best of our time and decided to call each other multiple times throughout the day, which lasted about 15 minutes each time. It’s good to have contact with people, even if it is virtually.

Tuesday, March 31

I decided to learn to paint with oils which ended badly considering oil actually takes a few days to dry, so my sunflower turned into a huge yellowish-brown blob after I let it sit to dry and sat a bunch of things on top of it, not realizing it wouldn’t be dry yet. This just proves you should do your research before setting your mind to a new project you know nothing about. 

I dedicated myself to completing minor things around my room, including finishing up a few posters that I painted to put on my wall and hanging up the rest of the magazine clippings on my ceiling that I started over a month ago and never planned on finishing. My daily chores were completed in as little time as I possible, just so it’s over faster, which resulted in my dad getting onto me for being lazy. I didn’t even bother to argue back considering we are all having a hard time being locked in together in a small loft cabin containing four people: my sister, father, grandmother and me. 

Wednesday, April 1

I woke up and spent the day doing things my father wanted done but couldn’t complete himself. I chopped down a small tree that was causing too much shade in the front yard. The axe left my hand blistered and bloody, which gloves would’ve prevented if I’d had more common sense. I was so sore, proving my body to be way more out of shape than I suspected since it took me a total of 20 minutes to chop down a tree with a trunk as thick as my wrists. I also learned to mow a yard that includes the steepest hill ever recorded, or so I described to make my dad let me off the hook. Do you know how hard it is to mow an entire acre of front yard, including grass and weeds? Let me just tell you that I didn’t get to the backyard. After I completed everything my dad wanted, I spent the rest of my time binge watching “The Vampire Diaries” for the eighth time….this month. 

Thursday, April 2

My dad and sister made me help them pack all of their things for a prolonged vacation in the mountains where we own a cabin due to the spread of this virus, causing my dad to be paranoid considering his respiratory problems. It took over two hours packing clothes that I didn’t even know that they owned. Longest two hours of my life. At this point, the days get longer and my sleep gets shorter. This was my lazy day. I started my homework at 5 in the afternoon and barely left my bed once my father and sister hit the road for their isolated trip with no wifi, leaving no doubt as to why I didn’t volunteer to join them.

Friday, April 3

I did the rest of my work that was ready to be turned on Saturday for most of my classes, which took a lot longer than expected. I took a hike in the woods behind my house and saw a snake and immediately turned around. That hike lasted a total of 10 minutes tops. With my dad and sister being gone for God knows how long, I will be spending the weekdays home alone since my grandmother works at the post office. That night I performed an at home concert while playing “Nothing Else Matters” by Metallica in the living room for my grandmother, and oh boy, was she impressed. I spent the rest of my time making my room a cozy fort with incense going all throughout the house. Who knows what I’ll do tomorrow?

During this time, I have been distracting myself from the news and all the horrible things that seem to be happening at this moment. Each day I wake up and pretend all is well, and then I go to sleep and repeat that cycle for the next day because there’s so much more to do life than dwelling on the idea that the world has halted and we are stuck in the same place trying to deal with a problem we’ve never experienced before. And that is how I practice social distancing.