Documenting COVID-19: My Story
Title
Documenting COVID-19: My Story
Date
09/20/2020
Creator
Ronald Evans
Contributor
Student
Text
My name is Andrew Evans. I am currently a junior at Columbus State where I am majoring in History, Secondary Education. I am 27 years old and have lived right here in Columbus, GA for all of my life. This is however only my third full semester at CSU thanks to the hefty amount of time I spent bouncing back and forth between community colleges and full-time jobs as I tried to figure out what I wanted to do with my life during my early twenties. Up until just last month I was working full time at Double Churches Middle School as a paraprofessional, but now because of my school schedule I have shifted down to just subbing three days a week (it’s a sweet gig). In this post I am going to give you a look at my experience of being a “non-traditional” aged college student during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020.
It was early March when I first heard the news that Atlanta had just confirmed their first positive case of COVID-19. I was walking down the hall with 3 of my students that I was responsible for. My heart sank a bit as we continued toward our 3rd period class. I knew that the remainder of my day would be spent skewering twitter and internet forums looking for information on this virus that we all knew so little about at the time. The more I searched the more I realized that finding positive or reassuring takes about why I shouldn’t worry about all of this, was going to be tough. I had to find something positive that I could hang on to so I could get through the rest of the day. You see, news like this hit me differently than it might hit most people. Being someone who since the age of 13 has suffered from a severe anxiety disorder, mostly centered around a deathly fear of becoming ill (hypochondriasis), I knew that I was about to face another big challenge.
My plans for 2020 at the time were to finish up the school year with work, take a heavy load of courses over the summer while working a bit part time to save up some money for the fall and winter where I knew I wouldn’t be able to work full time because of my course schedule. I also had big plans to buy a ring and be engaged by the end of year. But just a week after the confirmed case in Atlanta, we received the news that Muscogee County Schools would be shutting down. “it’s only until the end of March” they said, but by that time, we all knew that we would probably not see each other again for a long time. This news was tough on me, as it really started to set in that this year where I had so many big plans was not going to go as I thought.
As someone who spends majority of his free/alone time watching sports, going to the movies, and spending time with my girlfriend and close friends, my schedule quickly became wide open. Luckily my past issues with anxiety had prepared me for something like this. I knew that I had to come up with a routine and I had to do it fast or I would fall into a bad place. I sat down and mapped out what my schedule every day would look like. 8:00am- get up and exercise. This usually consisted of running/jogging about 5 miles around my neighborhood. 10:00am I would lock myself down and work on all of my assignments that were due for the day. A huge shout out to Dr. Banks for keeping me busy with a really fun and interesting mini-mester course on the Histories of Vandalism. I would wrap up around 2:00pm and allot myself some free time to work on a project or play video games. I’ll admit, Call of Duty Warzone helped me from completely losing my sanity at times. It may sound a bit childish at first but having this game that everyone seemed to be hooked on at the time allowed me to connect with some very old and close friends that I had drifted apart from over the years, just due to life and our busy schedules. It gave us an outlet to vent our fears and frustrations about what was going on in the world with each other. It gave us just a little something to look forward to every day, which we all needed. If I made it to 4:00pm I knew the rest of the day would be a breeze as I wound it down by spending time with family. We would do things like eat at the same table every night, find tv series to watch together, and have game nights with each other. It was a refreshing step back from the post-modern family lifestyle that we had become so accustomed to.
There were absolutely negatives along the way in those 5 months that we spent locked in our homes not knowing if or when things may start going back to some type of normalcy. There were plenty of breaking points. Fear that my job would call me and inform me that I had been laid off, fear that a loved one would fall ill or lose their job, and plenty of other fears all took their toll on me, but I leaned heavy on my faith and family, and was blessed enough not to see any of those things I feared happen. I believe that this horrible year has helped me become a stronger person mentally as I faced another huge challenge in overcoming the anxiety that I have battled for so long. It helped me become a stronger person spiritually and helped make my personal relationships grow stronger with those I love. I consider myself extremely lucky that what I’ve written here today is all that I had to deal with. I know that so many have been affected in much more drastic ways that make my struggles pale in comparison. My heart is with those people as we all try and adapt to a new normal way of life and face this unsure future that is standing ahead of us.
It was early March when I first heard the news that Atlanta had just confirmed their first positive case of COVID-19. I was walking down the hall with 3 of my students that I was responsible for. My heart sank a bit as we continued toward our 3rd period class. I knew that the remainder of my day would be spent skewering twitter and internet forums looking for information on this virus that we all knew so little about at the time. The more I searched the more I realized that finding positive or reassuring takes about why I shouldn’t worry about all of this, was going to be tough. I had to find something positive that I could hang on to so I could get through the rest of the day. You see, news like this hit me differently than it might hit most people. Being someone who since the age of 13 has suffered from a severe anxiety disorder, mostly centered around a deathly fear of becoming ill (hypochondriasis), I knew that I was about to face another big challenge.
My plans for 2020 at the time were to finish up the school year with work, take a heavy load of courses over the summer while working a bit part time to save up some money for the fall and winter where I knew I wouldn’t be able to work full time because of my course schedule. I also had big plans to buy a ring and be engaged by the end of year. But just a week after the confirmed case in Atlanta, we received the news that Muscogee County Schools would be shutting down. “it’s only until the end of March” they said, but by that time, we all knew that we would probably not see each other again for a long time. This news was tough on me, as it really started to set in that this year where I had so many big plans was not going to go as I thought.
As someone who spends majority of his free/alone time watching sports, going to the movies, and spending time with my girlfriend and close friends, my schedule quickly became wide open. Luckily my past issues with anxiety had prepared me for something like this. I knew that I had to come up with a routine and I had to do it fast or I would fall into a bad place. I sat down and mapped out what my schedule every day would look like. 8:00am- get up and exercise. This usually consisted of running/jogging about 5 miles around my neighborhood. 10:00am I would lock myself down and work on all of my assignments that were due for the day. A huge shout out to Dr. Banks for keeping me busy with a really fun and interesting mini-mester course on the Histories of Vandalism. I would wrap up around 2:00pm and allot myself some free time to work on a project or play video games. I’ll admit, Call of Duty Warzone helped me from completely losing my sanity at times. It may sound a bit childish at first but having this game that everyone seemed to be hooked on at the time allowed me to connect with some very old and close friends that I had drifted apart from over the years, just due to life and our busy schedules. It gave us an outlet to vent our fears and frustrations about what was going on in the world with each other. It gave us just a little something to look forward to every day, which we all needed. If I made it to 4:00pm I knew the rest of the day would be a breeze as I wound it down by spending time with family. We would do things like eat at the same table every night, find tv series to watch together, and have game nights with each other. It was a refreshing step back from the post-modern family lifestyle that we had become so accustomed to.
There were absolutely negatives along the way in those 5 months that we spent locked in our homes not knowing if or when things may start going back to some type of normalcy. There were plenty of breaking points. Fear that my job would call me and inform me that I had been laid off, fear that a loved one would fall ill or lose their job, and plenty of other fears all took their toll on me, but I leaned heavy on my faith and family, and was blessed enough not to see any of those things I feared happen. I believe that this horrible year has helped me become a stronger person mentally as I faced another huge challenge in overcoming the anxiety that I have battled for so long. It helped me become a stronger person spiritually and helped make my personal relationships grow stronger with those I love. I consider myself extremely lucky that what I’ve written here today is all that I had to deal with. I know that so many have been affected in much more drastic ways that make my struggles pale in comparison. My heart is with those people as we all try and adapt to a new normal way of life and face this unsure future that is standing ahead of us.
Citation
anonymous, “Documenting COVID-19: My Story,” Columbus State University Archives and Special Collections , accessed April 25, 2024, http://digitalarchives.columbusstate.edu/items/show/4048.