Do I even need to mention what’s going on in the world right now or are we all caught up to speed? Because quite frankly, I don’t think there’s a single day in the past month that has gone by without my newsfeed being swamped with COVID-19 reports.
Typically, March Madness is a great sporting event for me and my fellow college basketball fans around the nation. I’m a huuuuggeee fan of the Kansas Jayhawks and you know what? This year, I really thought we had a chance. It could’ve been a great year where we went all the way. Luckily, they still awarded us number 1 in the nation to finish out this season, but unfortunately, March Madness just didn’t play out like it does most years.
March was a little more mad and even crazier than anyone in my lifetime has ever experienced.
My month began crazy when I kicked off the month on March 1 going to get my second tattoo. Blog post to come about its explanation. But I thought you know what this is gonna be a great day, a great month, I’m getting my second tattoo, woohoo let’s go March. That night, however, I started feeling a bit sick (NOT CORONA DON’T START TO WORRY NOW JUST A COMMON COLD) and I was like eh ok time for bed, wake up tomorrow feeling better.
March 2, March became a little mad. You see, from March 6-14, I was supposed to be experiencing my third and final Ignacio Companion trip with Campus Ministry, co-leading a trip to Guatemala. (You can read my other blog posts about my first two trips here.) I decided to not go into my internship that day because I was still feeling a tad iffy with my cold and needing some extra sleep. Then at 12:18pm, in a text from my campus minister, I, along with all my fellow IC leaders, learned that all our spring trips were cancelled due to fear of the spreading of coronavirus. I was so glad that I was at home in bed and not at work because I was able to curl up into a ball and cry. Lizzie, my roommate who was supposed to be leading a trip to Peru, called me sobbing and came home to lay in bed together, holding each other and continue to cry and process the news. It felt truly like a death. Something had been ripped away from me. Something that means that absolute world to me. The Ignacio Companion Trip Program has really made my college experience at LMU. It’s truly the first program I became involved in and has taught me some of the greatest lessons of my life. I was devastated to not be able to experience another IC trip ever again. I was even more upset for all the people my participants and I would have encountered and for all the lost memories that will now never be made. The coronavirus hadn’t even really began to spread as predominantly in the United States, let alone these countries we were to be traveling to so I felt cheated that the virus was taking something from me like that. I respected their decision to cancel the trips as I understood it was more of a precautionary measure but I was still upset. March was no longer off to such a great tone.
The rest of the week was me continuing to fight off my cold, feeling drained of emotion from the loss of IC, exhausted from crying at points, feeling lost as to what I was supposed to do instead the following week for my school’sspring break, while trying to finish off some school work before break. I missed 2 classes, didn’t go into work for the full time, didn’t attend chapter or student mass, called off my weekly Den Date with Aisea, and sadly didn’t go to Feed the Hungry service that week. It was truly a rough week.
However, I am so glad I went to the Well, a non-denominational worship group gathering, that week because the message was so good, the worship music was some of the best, and little did I know it would be my last one ever.
The following week, spring break began and I hung out around home and with a few friends before Lizzie and I decided to pack up for a mini 3 day road trip. We left on the 10th and drove to Palm Springs where we had booked an Airbnb. On the 11th, we visited the Salton Sea, Salvation Mountain, and Joshua Tree all in one day. And then drove back to LA on the 12th. Quick trip but so fun and a nice trip of accompaniment to share with Lizzie. She even ended up taking me to Home Brewed, a coffee shop in Pasadena that she has been talking about since around the time we’ve met but that I had never been to up until that point. Looking back, so glad we did all that when we did.
We finished off spring break, about halfway through receiving news that we would moving to online courses for 2 weeks upon returning from spring break in order to fulfill the requirements of 2 weeks of quarantine. Then on March 13th, around 11:45pm, we received the devastating news that online classes would be extended through the rest of the semester, inevitably ending many parts of my college career right there and then.
I remember reading the news, sending a text to my roommates, and then laying in bed pretty silent, no words, no tears, while my roommates Gaia and Nicole sat on my bed in tears and anger. This meant no more student mass. No more chapter meetings for my sorority. No more formal events. No more going to the Well. No more going to Feed the Hungry. No more Den Dates with Aisea. No more going to work in the Admissions Office as a Tour Guide. No more will I ever sit in a classroom at Loyola Marymount University to take an undergraduate class.
March had just become a lot more mad.
Eventually, they pushed online classes to begin another week later to allow students time to cope, prepare to go online, and for students living in on campus housing to move out and return home. This meant we got another week of spring break, but this time, there was no leaving the house on a road trip. We were home for a week with absolutely no plans but to hang out around the house. My roommates and I watched Love Island UK-Season 6, baked, drank, laid in the sun, had random photo shoots, worked out, and played lots of cup pong on Game Pigeon. All while trying to not go mad being trapped inside a house.
Trying not to catch the March Madness.
Truthfully, I still have yet to cry about this whole situation. Sure I’ve cried in the past few weeks once or twice, but always because of things that have triggered me like a sweet moment in a TV show, or a song that plays on my Spotify, or because of a sweet text message I received. But I haven’t cried like my roommates did that first night with the news. Honestly, I’m shocked I haven’t cried for the situation and I’m surprised my reaction was a silentness of being stunned.
I think I’m trying to look at what has been in the good. Eventually, classes did start up via Zoom and we got a bit more of normalcy going with attending class, even if it was virtually. My job as a Tour Guide moved to doing Zoom panels with prospective students. Campus Ministry has held Zoom prayer services to all connect us. I’ve had a chance to watch so many TV shows and movies, read the book on my shelf, begin a personal Bible study, work on a puzzle, be a model for lizzieneedshobbies. I’ve FT my friends more than I had in the prior 3 months. My roommates and I have fostered a dog, worked out every morning, watched church services online, had family dinners and brunches, and even held a formal in our house getting all dressed up and dancing around the living room. And in terms of job prospects, I’ve been fortunate to have a couple of interviews virtually.
March was mad, but I can’t say it was all bad. It’s so funny to think back to March 2 when my world shattered. I thought that was the worst of the worst. I sobbed that week nonstop. I felt like a death had taken place and no one but maybe 10 people in my life knew what I was feeling. And then the whole world got hid harder and life was put into a different perspective as a new reality formed. So much has happened in a month. I can’t even believe it has been 3 weeks in quarantine and how much has changed. I pray for the next 3 weeks to continue to bring change and maybe, just maybe, for the better.