ONE YEAR GONE | A lesson learned: COVID doesn't care about life plans - Port Townsend Leader

A year into the pandemic, Eugenia Frank recalled how that first shutdown seemed to sound like such a very long time.

“From the day that I found out we were not going to have school until April 24 — that six weeks seemed like such a long time,” Frank recalled.

“Thinking back, we’ve gone through six weeks eight times,” she said.

Frank is a high school junior and has been attending Chimacum schools since the third grade.

A 17-year-old, she lives in Quilcene with her parents, Anna Phillips and Art Frank. Her mother is a deputy prosecuting attorney for Jefferson County, while her father is a detective with the sheriff’s office. She has a twin sister, Viola.

At school, Frank is the vice president of the junior class and is also involved in the Interact Club Of Chimacum High School, a Rotary youth service club.

She also sails with the Port Townsend High School sailing team and participates in Puget Sound Voyaging, the Community Boat Project.

Before the pandemic, she was also a member of the Port Townsend Youth Chorus and Vocal Ensemble. Frank also serves as a youth representative to the Chimacum School Board and is often called to give student body updates with fellow representative Ava Vaughan-Mifsud.

“I’m a very busy person,” Frank laughed.

The pandemic changed all that.

“My entire world was upended,” she said, recalling how her life revolved around what she was doing at school, the activities surrounding high school life, and her friends.

“In the beginning, it was all just canceled,” she recalled.

Starting March 15, 2020 — she was home. To stay.

“After that day I didn’t leave my house or my property for 89 days,” Frank said.

Her first trip out was for graduation day at Chimacum High, to see friends during the drive-through event. It was the first time she had left the solitude of her family’s remote property.

“It felt like at times my family were the last people on earth and nobody else existed because I only saw them through a computer screen,” Frank said.

“It was such a robotic way of interacting with people. The social isolation was very intense, especially for the first two or three months.”

The pandemic, she said, prompted her to evaluate her relationships with other people.

“I did that a lot with myself,” she added.

“I was just like kind of a character in my own life. I wasn’t taking enough care of myself,” Frank added.

“I wasn’t doing things for me; I was doing them for an end goal,” she said.

Playing a sport for a varsity letter, or an activity that would help at some future date, in college or an eventual job.

That changed.

“During COVID I really started doing things for myself, and for my own benefit.”

She started painting with watercolors, for one.

“It was like its own little world. It helped me relax,” she said.

Brief escapes — including short nature walks with her sister and a friend — were just that. Brief.

“During COVID, it just felt like, in reality, a virus or pandemic really doesn’t care about how your life plan is going,” she said.

The time alone made her think about her friendships and relationships with others, Frank said.

“Some of them made it through months of isolation and a couple of them didn’t,” she said. “The ones that did are really, really strong now,” Frank said.

“My relationships with those people, now that we’ve gone through COVID, I feel like I have friends for life.”

There was another realization. Pre-pandemic, Frank said she was in “a rut of monotony.”

“COVID presents a different kind of monotony. The way it kind of shook up everything for a little while was bit of a wake-up call. To evaluate what was important.”

“It definitely changed my perspective on my plans for life. At that time I was a high school student chugging along and making my way toward graduation and whatever will happen afterward.”

Once the coronavirus is finally conquered, Frank said she expected some element of life as she knew it before will return. 

But it won’t be the same, she added.

“It will be a different normal,” Frank said.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

"care" - Google News
March 27, 2021 at 06:03AM
https://ift.tt/31pJGyS

ONE YEAR GONE | A lesson learned: COVID doesn't care about life plans - Port Townsend Leader
"care" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2N6arSB
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update

Bagikan Berita Ini