A Day In My Life

Story/Video posted April 28, 2020 in

My name is Liz Irvin, 2 months ago I was a normal college student who went to Penn State, I lived up in State College on my own with two other roomates and I was living out my final semester in college. All of a sudden when I came home from spring break I was told that everything was going to change and I wasn't allowed back up to my campus.

I was told I have to stay home because my school was getting shut down due to Covid-19. The next few weeks came and passed, I was working more and more at my job and the government was implementing more rules every day that we as a society had to follow.

In the past two months, I have been stripped of my final semester at college, my graduation, and any chance of a good job out of college all because of Covid-19. I will now be known as the class that didn't graduate, this virus has taken so much from me in such a short amount of time. 

SG91c2U=The construction site for our future home.

Since college has been cancelled I have been living with my mom in this very small cramped apartment, we were in the middle of moving houses in my hometown of York, Pa., when Covid-19 struck and shut down the construction process. Now we are living together in this two bedroom apartment with very little space for both of us to move around in which makes living together hard. 

When I was living in State College, there was no problem just being in a small apartment with my mother, since I was forced to come home from college, it has been tougher. We were used to living in a very luxurious home, in November of 2019 we decided to downsize into a smaller house and so we chose to live in a small apartment for a short amount of time while the new house was being built.

The construction crew just started working on the new house in January of 2020, they only had about three months of work done before they were told to stop. Now all that is left is a sold sign and piles of dirt. My mother and I are tired of looking at the same four walls in this small home. It has been a big transition in a short time.

The times that my mother and I do go outside is to help my elderly grandparents go shopping for food. We grocery shop so they don't have to, we drop the bags off in the garage and my grandmother sanitizes them with a sterilized rag to keep her and my grandfather safe, as they self isolate themselves.

 

We have been trying very hard to stay inside and social distance from other people. It does make it difficult because I never get to see my boyfriend of my friends. I have not been able to get my things from State College and I am stuck in my house most days except for when I go to work.

I have been working as a grocery store cashier for four years now, and never once have I been called an essential worker until now. As an essential worker, I am working forty-hour weeks to help keep up with the high food demand. People are slowly forgetting what it is like to be civil in a grocery store and instead are hoarding necessary items such as toilet paper and water. 

 

As an essential worker, I have to follow rules I have never had to do before, such as wearing a mask and gloves when I walk through the door. I am also required to carry around a special note from the CEO of the company to ensure I don't get pulled over by the police. Before Covid-19 I would just have to wear my uniform and drive to work, adding these extra steps makes it difficult working sometimes. 

My main concern is when the government lets up on all of these restrictions, what happens next? What happens for the students who were left behind? What happens for the graduates moving into a new world after loosing their senior world. How do we as a society move on from this? 

Two months ago you never had to worry about wearing protective gear when you walked down the street, now it is mandated by the government. It insane to see the world we once lived in change so quickly. Families can't even enjoy holidays with one another anymore without implementing social distancing. 

It's very scary trying to think about the future, it used to be I was just scared because I would have to go into the real world, but now it's scary because when I graduate I have no idea if I'll even be able to get a job due to this virus shutting down the world. 

I've never felt so alone than what I do right now. I have had so many things taken from me in such a short amount of time and everytime we turn on the news we hear more about deaths and more about people getting sick, it feels like nothing will ever feel the same again.

I am very tired being an essential worker, I have only been working as one for the past two months, but I want it to be over. I want to go back to a normal life where I can go out with my friends and have fun. I want Covid-19 to be over with and I hope no generations after me ever have to go through the pain we are all facing right now, being isolated, being apart from loved ones, and just generally being depressed.