These past few weeks in quarantine have been hard on us teens for a multitude of reasons, including boredom, lack of motivation, being stuck with our families, and of course, missing our friends. Aside from Jordan Baker and retail therapy, all you really have is yourself.
An anecdote:
Recently, I've been thinking a lot about my first year of high school up until this point and what came before that... my years in middle school. Frankly it seems the person I am now and my 7th grade self are two very different people. A lot of really uncomfortable and awkward moments from that time replay in my head, but it all feels like a blur of embarrassment and loneliness. I never realized how awful it had been... let's just say I would comment 'where's my tag' on my "friends" posts and compromised my true personality. As much as it's hard to think about, soon I will be posting a full run down of this time and whole bunch of tips for you guys so stuff works out a bit better on your end.
Now, I want to make something clear, I was actually super happy outside of school. Why? I reconnected with some friends from preschool and that changed my life. We were all going through that same insecure phase of finding new friends at our different schools and fitting in had never felt so hard. Those 2 years of middle school, most lunches I'd find a quiet place to facetime the preschool group and we'd plan fun weekends to spend together. Each time we went to our one friend's house, we'd push each other into the pool with our clothes on. After several hangouts when this continually happened, we didn't even bother bringing a swimsuit (and most of the time we'd steal each other's clothes and never bring any of our own). I'm not sure who came up with it or how it stuck but we named our little squad of 5, the 'Wet Clothes Squad'. This year the dynamics of our group has changed a lot because we all are settled in our new school friend groups... I guess things really do work out at some point.
The point:
What I'm trying to say is that during this quarantine, you might be feeling really lonely (I know I am) and bit out of sorts. We all pretty much have nothing better to do than scrolling through TikToks and binging 'bachelor wanna be' Netflix dating shows. Reach out to an old friend... catch up. Someone they care about might be sick or they've been quarreling with their family a lot... maybe yours has. During a hard time when I needed my old friends, they were there. Time can push people apart and that's just apart of life that friendships will fade... but history is history. No one can take that away. I think it'll be worth it during the struggles of COVID-19 to rekindle some old friendships.
You got this,
Sophia