QUARANTINE

 

My past self would not believe that in the future there were going to be people wearing face masks and surgical gloves to go buy groceries on a daily basis. It was something that nobody really thought we were going to end up doing. I would describe my experience during quarantine as a really old car trying to get to its destination; It might seem like the car is still capable of continuing until it stops in the middle of the road and you just spend hours waiting for someone or something to appear out of nowhere to help you. In other words, you are just there waiting for things to return to normal when the reality is this; it’s not going to happen, a global pandemic does not have compassion towards people, their jobs, and their human needs of interaction.

The obligated quarantine might not be as horrible to some households: spending more time with the family, disconnecting from the world and finding internal peace by being in your own space, having more time for yourself and to enjoy little things in life, etc. That was not my case: The more you keep people together, there’s a greater chance of developing a type of repulsion towards them and that is what happened with my family and me. 

As quarantine started, I decided to isolate myself back in Pennsylvania where my mother, her boyfriend, and my sister used to live. I realized that the trip was not going to be as quick as I wanted to be since I had to take the bus all the way to the northeast part of Philadelphia. I texted my dad telling him that I was going to see my mother and without receiving any response, I grabbed my bag full of clothes, my portable game console, and some water for the trip and exited my house. The trip from my house to the bus station in Manhattan went smoothly besides the bad odor coming from the MTA trains that I had to take in order to get Downtown. As I was walking towards the bus, my dad decided to text me: “I don’t want you to go there”. How was I supposed to respond to that? While getting on my bus I decided to just not answer his text message for the moment and just keep on going with my boring trip. As I arrived in Philadelphia, I saw my mother driving towards me in her minivan along with her partner. It’s been a while since the last time we saw each other. I got in the car and something was not right: she looked tired, exhausted and her appearance looked near deadly. I realized that quarantine was something that affected not only myself but those who surround me.

“Hey, mom!” was the first thing that came out of my mouth after getting into the car; something is telling me that my mother’s boyfriend is not okay either, he looked just as bad as my mother: tired, exhausted… I wanted to get into the center of the problem, and knowing my mother and how much of an open book she is, it was not going to be that hard. my mom is just like a really old history book: full of emotions and weird endings. The drive from the bus station to my mom’s house was not as long as I thought, I was able to see what “Philly” had to offer and a good sunset was enough for me to ignore the uncomfortable silence in the car. 

“Hey, Aimee. How’s school? How’s leaving New York City going? Are you taking your med-?”, I began to get bombarded with question after question by my mom while walking to the front of the house; I was feeling already physically drained due to the bus trip and the last thing I needed was my mother trying to play jeopardy with me. After answering all the questions (or at least most of them), I decided to go to my room and leave my belongings on my desk, take a quick shower, and proceed to look through my phone. 

A few days later, my dad called me while I was in the middle of an online session with my teacher. He sounded worried and mad at the same time, asking me why did I leave; it was not the greatest time for me to handle a conversation. A few hours later while working on school work, I heard people yelling upstairs, I proceeded to go and see what was the deal. I saw my dad who came all the way from New York City yelling and arguing with my mother at the front door along with my mother’s boyfriend. “I want to see my daughter right now!”, my dad said furiously to my mother; they were not talking about me, but my sister Emia. Since I started living in New York with my dad, my sister has not been in contact with my dad whatsoever and that’s due to the resentment my sister felt when my mother and my dad divorced a few years ago. I wanted to intervene but my father stopped me with his look in his eyes. “What are you doing here, I told you to not come here and you did not obey”, I felt the anger trying to get out of my body, I was trying to hold it in; I did not succeed. “I AM AN ADULT, DAD! I just wanted to visit my mother and this is the scene that you are making? If you want to see my sister you really didn’t have to do this at all.”, I expressed with anger. My dad looked at me with indignation, My dad proceeded to take out his phone while my mother and her boyfriend were still arguing with him. He answered the phone and we noticed he called 911 on us. The police came and my dad told them how my mother is denying him seeing my sister Emia. I couldn’t really handle what was happening, so I went to my room and tried to meditate about what was happening.

The night time came and while we were all having dinner, something came out of my mother’s mouth that made me fully understand that quarantine does bring the worst part of people: “Emia, let me see your arm”. Something clicked in my head, I understood everything, my dad not wanting me to come to Philadelphia, my dad coming and calling 911 on my mother. He was worried, he knew what happened but me, I was so clueless and I defended my mother without knowing anything. My sister rolled up her sleeve revealing cuts and bruises that made me speechless.

While describing this, it’s hard for me to show this to the world. However, quarantine can be a time of taking care of ourselves; not everybody has that pleasure. The quarantine can be stressful, dangerous, and overwhelming, it can lead to actions that we would not wish not even to our worst enemy. This might only be a case of self-destruction due to quarantine, but it’s not the first nor the second. How many kids are going through this while quarantine?