Homesick – a reflection from Year 9

Every day is the same when in quarantine and lockdown. Self-isolation.

Get up, have a shower, get dressed, breakfast, school, break, school, lunch, more school, piano practice, dinner and finally, bed. Every one interprets the whole idea of being ‘home sick’ as being on holiday and missing home. But what if you’re at home and missing school, or friends and even just nature? Does it then become ‘school sick’, ‘friend sick’ or ‘nature sick’?

Even with all of the negatives, restrictions and setbacks, what could be better than being able to wear your own clothes for a change or having an extra-long shower with that extra twenty minutes you would normally use for the drive to school?  Actually, having time to walk the dog or do a little bit of extra fitness in the morning… sometimes.

Overall, one of the best things about lockdown is that for me, nothing changes very much. Although, I don’t have to physically go school in the morning, I still have piano lessons, dance lessons and voice lessons on line, and I can still go for short runs or long walks, I just need to watch out for people as well as cars now.

However, the negatives outweigh the positives. That feeling that any day you could get a call saying your grandfather has Covid-19, or that one day your mother comes home coughing up a lung. Even with this being a very unlikely possibility, it is still is an ever present weight pressing on your chest and playing on your mind. The main problem though, is the effect on friendships. Not being able to see or talk to people you can’t contact, or just having a screen with a friend’s face on it isn’t the same, and it never will be.

So far, the only thing that I have really missed out on was Easter. We always go down to Apollo Bay each year with some of my cousins, and just not being able to go down was terrible. I missed getting the sand between my toes, walking into town from the caravan park and most of all surfing with my family. I have not been able to go to the beach much this year, and that was meant to be my chance. Unfortunately though, I also missed out on the birthday gathering of one of my closest friends, and the kicker was that it was on the first day of self-isolation.

Overall, I think we have grown as a family, we still have long conversations over dinner, and argue about what takeaway food to get, but we just do it more, meaning one day out of ten we get on each other nerves, but it is quite pleasant the other nine days.

One of the nicest things which my family does together, is that most nights we play two fun scrabble based games without the board. It is a staple of our family time in lockdown and I could not wish for it any other way. The best part of these games is that it’s fair, we have an even winning rate without anyone cheating. Whoever wins, is just the person with the better tiles. Win. Win.

Only three more weeks until we can finally go back to normal or what might become the ‘new normal’.

– Year 9 Student