Prompt: Write a letter to your future self
Dear Future Self,
Oh man – how do I even start this? This has been a crazy time. I miss my friends and I miss dance. I sit at a single desk all day. I miss running between classes and my locker panicking that I'm going to be late for my next class. I miss my teachers and my classes. Joey and Clara play with laser Nerf Guns all afternoon and their thundering footsteps continue to echo above my head all afternoon. I feel like I'm living inside my pointe shoes. It's cold and then it's hot. I can't get out of it until this is over and instead of my feet being trapped my body is. Just like my shoes it's painful, yet pleasing. I get to spend more time with my family. Before quarantine I would see my parents for a brief moment running out the door in the morning and then in the car on the way to dance. I almost never saw Joey and Clara. We woke up at different times and they would often be in bed before I even got home at night. I've also been able to get more sleep. I would be at school all day and then come home to change and drive to dance. I would be there for hours and come home exhausted only to have homework. I would shove a dinner down my throat and jump in the shower before spending agonizing hours writing and erasing. I was lucky if I could go to sleep before 1 or 2 in the morning. Now, I start school and I'm done with everything for the day around 2 or 3 in the afternoon. Dance is in my living room, not downtown; and is done a quarter past 5, not a quarter past 9. We have family time most nights. I haven't done that since I was what? 5? 6? Sometimes it's as simple as watching a movie or listening to an audiobook while we eat dinner and laughing at each other's random commentary. Other times we'll play a game and sit around the table with steaming mugs of hot chocolate or ice cold milkshakes. Or we're playing on the Wii, listening to my brother geek out about his games. Some nights we do karaoke and scream the lyrics knowing we all sound terrible but laughing about it. Even if we're not talking, we're just enjoying each other's presence. In the past we would be lucky to have dinner all together more than twice a week. Another thing is the awful masks. I hate wearing them and breathing the same stale air over and over again. Mom and Dad gave us black ones so now we just pretend to rob the store which helps take our minds off the fact that we're suffocating. I also got to help Meghan TA for some medical students. I helped figure out some different things and then brightened their lives by decorating the whole thing Disney – it was a pediatric rotation after all! Although good is coming out of this I really do hope it's all over soon.
Past Self,
April 14, 2020
YOU ARE READING
Strength Through COVID-19
Non-FictionSo basically I have an aunt who is a pediatrician and I have been very lucky to have them been involved in the medical community through this time. I have joined private online meetings as well as an open one through Stanford University. I thought a...
