PAC Student Media

By Lisa Silva
Pulse Staff Reporter

My house is both a refuge and a prison, making me feel safe but trapped at the same time. Now I know how much of my freedom I’ve taken for granted.

I always thought small things, like going to the grocery store down the street, were such a chore. Now it has turned into something I don’t want to do because it is not safe. The red stamps on the floor, making you stand 6 feet apart from other people, really hit me hard. Everyone looks paranoid about the people around them. 

“I sneezed and noticed everyone around me giving me a dirty look,” said my mom, 54. 

But honestly, I too feel like a human fungus that people are afraid of. In reality, HEB is the only place I venture to get out of my cell, and it’s just not a fun place to be.

My family, on the other hand, seems to be doing well. My grandpa is retired, and he already spends all of his day at home anyway.

“This is worse than 9/11 because it affects everyone, not just the United States,” said my grandpa, 84.

My mother is a homebody who doesn’t have to work because my family owns houses that they rent out. None of their tenants have had any trouble paying their rent on time, so that is a great thing. If they did have any problems with paying rent, my family is very understanding because they have struggled financially themselves in the past.

I’m the only one who really had a busy schedule of work and school. Without a schedule and having places to be, I tend to get very depressed. Surprisingly, though, throughout this whole quarantine, I didn’t notice an increase in my depression, but I did notice an increase in my anxiety. I could be sitting on my bed by myself, and my palms would be sweating, my heart racing. This anxiety causes me to stay awake until the sun comes up the next morning because I can’t seem to stop my brain from thinking. When will things be back to normal? When will I see my friends again? What will I do for work since the school library is closed? What will happen when I run out of money?

On a happier note, the positive about having so much time on my hands is that I have been cooking a lot, which is something I’ve never really done. Besides the occasional pasta meal, I’d cook only once in a blue moon. I never knew cooking would be something I would enjoy, but it is. And cooking for my family makes me feel happy. 

To keep myself happy, I’ve stopped watching the news simply because it’s so depressing all the time. We don’t know if there will be an ending to all of this. Nothing is certain, and we just have to wait and see. Getting our hopes up that we will have our freedoms back and then being told it will at least be another month, over and over again, is difficult. We are so close, but yet so far away, to having our normal lives back. This doesn’t feel like the land of the free.