In many ways, I’ve been fortunate during COVID-19. I didn’t work, and I never had to worry about putting food on the table, or affording rent or tuition. From March 2020 to September 2021, I stayed at my house in Richmond Hill, where my parents provided everything for me.
But staying at home also meant my life was the most transformed of anyone in my family. My parents still went to work and saw their colleagues. My sister still had school in person.
My classes were online. I only left the house for medical appointments, errands, and to go on a daily walk in the neighbourhood by myself. I didn’t hang out with anyone outside my household.
I wasn’t extremely proactive about making friends in my first and second year of university. When the pandemic started, I had a few friends, but I wasn’t close with any of them. I barely talked to them online when we didn’t have any in-person interactions or shared co-curricular activities.
But I did make one new friend. We took an asynchronous course in the summer of 2020, and neither of us knew anyone else in the class. When I became involved in student life within Woodsworth College, she did, too — and the rest is history.
COVID-19 has lasted longer than most of us expected. When U of T finally returned to campus this September, I was starting my fourth year. I made a plan that, before graduation in June, I would visit every building and study in every library on the St. George campus.
I’m adding items like this to my bucket list because I lost opportunities I didn’t know I had until it was too late. I first heard of Daddyo’s last year; the restaurant closed permanently in September, right before I moved back downtown and could dine at this favourite student spot.
But returning to campus was not the cure for all my struggles that I dreamt up in my mind. I have much more on my plate now than I did in first year; I juggle school, work, cooking, preparing law school applications, extracurriculars, and setting aside time to catch up with friends. I became overwhelmed and lightened my course load. I ate less than I did back home and I lost several pounds in a month.
Faced with all this, I couldn’t help but wonder if I would be better off now had I lived on my own during the pandemic like some of my friends did. It would’ve cost a lot of money for rent, and I would’ve needed to work to pay for the cost of it myself. If the only jobs I could find were in person, I would have had to risk COVID-19 exposure every day.
However, if the cost of all that meant I became more capable of supporting myself and adjusting to the return to campus, would it all be worth it?
Living at home for a year and a half gave me abundant time, which I could have spent on personal growth. I wish I’d accomplished more. There were some activities, such as exercise, that I’d used the pandemic as an excuse to put off. York Region’s gyms were open sporadically through all of the COVID-19 restrictions; I could have gone to the gym, but didn’t because of the risk of becoming sick. I could have exercised at home, but I wanted to wait to return to the gym, where I had access to the equipment to do it properly. I postponed anything that I felt was inconvenient, or anything that would be more enjoyable to do once life finally returned to normal.
This being said, good things did come during the pandemic for me. I wrote the LSAT in June and scored well. I landed several jobs, for the first time in my life. I booked and passed my G-class road test.
For some of my acquaintances from before the pandemic, my chance of becoming close with them at U of T has passed. But I have been able to reconnect with most of the people who were in my life in first and second year. U of T’s return to campus and co-curricular activities has also given me the opportunity to befriend some additional, wonderful peers.
Ultimately, COVID-19 has been a defining and unique experience for all of us. For me, it reinforced the importance of reaching for opportunities — whether they be related to school, work, friendships, or making memories — whenever I can. But it also taught me that it’s okay if I don’t accomplish everything I want to. What’s important is that I experience the most I can, in both trying times and tranquil ones.
The sum of my unique set of experiences — both my hits and the misses — make me who I am today.
