Pandemic Processing: Reflecting on Quarantine Four Years Later

Image Credits: Vecteezy

Four years ago, a pandemic that shocked the 21st century hit the world. I remember saying goodbye to my friends and going home blithely, unaware that it would be anything more than an extra two weeks of spring break. After an online graduation and an entire school year online, I found myself in the chaos of middle school. The transition was jarring, as it was for other fellow students, but through this hectic time I and many others were able to find some solace. For me, it was becoming consumed in video games and Youtube videos.  To shed light on students’ experiences during that strange time, and to explore how those experiences differed from grade to grade, The Barefoot Times decided to seek out Sequoyans’ pandemic stories.

Lucy Pettit ’26 predominately spent the pandemic doing what many Sequoyans crave: she slept. ‘’I slept a lot,” she shared. “I had very vivid dreams, more than I’ve had since [quarantine] because it felt like there were so few things I had occurring in my day-to-day life that my dream life kind of made up for it. I would wake up and I wrote them all down, which I’m glad about.’’ She recalls the week of lockdown as clearly as her dreams. According to her, no one was talking about COVID. Pettit remembers having a seminar on Zoom, packing up her things, and not taking the lockdown announcement seriously. She was excited to stay home at the time. But Pettit felt that ‘’The novelty wore off very quickly. I feel like I had less motivation to do things because it felt like I was just sitting there punching numbers onto a keyboard. Some of the stuff I just don’t have memory of. I never really got a comprehensive Algebra education, because when I was in seventh grade, I was taking pre-algebra, and the class was on Zoom. I never got a foundational understanding of what [algebra is].’’ On the bright side, Pettit gained an appreciation for cooking. ‘’The biggest thing I miss is making myself lunch. I would shut my laptop, I would go downstairs, and I would make myself a big, delicious lunch. It was actually one of the reasons I started cooking and I love to cook now. I missed that practice of self-care and making myself lunch everyday.’’ 

Jenna Cuseo ’25 also found comfort in a hobby during the lockdown. ‘’Drawing is something I enjoy doing. And since [I was] at home more [and] I could do class online, I had a lot more time to [draw].’’ Cuseo felt that drawing helped her relax and she was able to improve her skills during the lockdown. She also reflected on the separation of her immediate family when one of them fell ill. ‘’We just quarantined in our designated rooms, and I have the experience of both being quarantined and not seeing the person that got sick. And it felt distant in both ways. I didn’t feel… as connected with my family if one of us wasn’t there, or I wasn’t there.’’ The transition of going into high school was also something that struck Cuseo. ‘’I wasn’t very excited to go back to school after being online for so long. I preferred being online at the time since it meant less social interaction.’’ However, the pandemic swayed her feelings. ‘’Being away from people so long made me feel like I needed to be with people more.’’ 

For Giussepe DiMassa ‘24, the lockdown day involved choosing a school to attend, a process that many seniors find themselves repeating this year. DiMassa was sent home midday after a cautionary cough, stuffing his belongings into two large trash bags and never returning to his old school. He made the decision to enroll at Sequoyah that afternoon. Among other hobbies, DiMassa picked up Dungeons and Dragons, building model figurines, and writing opinion pieces on the 2020 election during the pandemic. Throughout that chaotic year, he noticed that ‘’one of the great benefits of the pandemic was that everybody was going through the same thing.’’ DiMassa also highlighted the social discrepancies between his freshman and sophomore year, explaining that he ‘’was more social in the sense that I spent more time around people, but less social in the sense that I had weaker connections to people my sophomore year. I was more social but less connected.’’ Reflecting on what might have been had he done his freshman year in person, DiMassa related, ‘’I think that it probably would’ve made [me] more engaged with my classes. We would have been able to meet people in our classes. I met a couple of people in classes higher than me, but relatively few… so, I didn’t have a built-in Sequoyah’s community until I got to sophomore year.’’  

Luckily, most schools in the country were cleared to go back to for the following school year. Now, we can look back and breathe a sigh of relief knowing that we’ve made it to the other side. These days, we can enjoy our spring breaks without them posing as extended vacations.