A letter from January 7th, 2021

Dear Future Me, COVID-19 is probably the one thing that effected me the most. It caused a lockdown, which included quarantine. During this quarantine I stayed up until around 2-4am each night, which caused me to get less sleep. I continue to stay up this late, and it started around June or July of 2020. Quarantine and lockdown also caused me to feel super lonely. When I wasn't around my friends, I just didn't feel the same anymore. Also, everything seems delayed now, and I'm not sure if I'm the only one who feels this way. Thanksgiving felt right, but Christmas didn't. It almost felt like we were not celebrating at the right time. Oh, and what happened to Easter? For some reason I can't even remember Easter of 2020. Now, here it is, January 2021, and we still haven't recovered from this virus. We've made some progress, but somehow we keep having to start this progress over. When we started school this year (8th grade), we didn't even start until September because of everything being pushed back. We were doing in-person and virtual learning days, they were back and forth. I went on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s because my last name starts with an M. A-J last names went on Monday and Wednesday, and some kids were all virtual. We stopped doing in-person school in the middle of November due to almost all of the teachers having to quarantine. We were supposed to go back to what we were originally doing on January 4th, after Christmas break. Somehow, that got pushed back too. So supposedly we're going all the way back on January 25th. Crazy right? All of us will be there, 5 days a week. It seems scary because we haven't been back to normal at all since COVID-19 came, and lockdowns started. Thank you for listening to this long rant about how much I dislike COVID-19. I hope everything is better now. Sincerely, 8th grade Lexi.