Last March, before driving home to my family home for spring break, I was dreading staying for the whole week. University life offered me freedom I had never experienced before, but my mother begged me to come home because I hadn't seen my family since Christmas. She wanted me to stay for eight days, I told her six was the most I could handle. I stayed for 87 days.
Because the pandemic arrived, along with a city-wide stay-at-home order, I sat in my childhood bedroom with an overwhelming sense of dullness. I watched online lectures with dullness. I laid in my bed and stared at my ceiling in dullness. I sulked in sadness and at the loss of my "adult" autonomy.
My younger sister, obsessed with internet trends, tried to make the lockdown fun by planning themed meals and learning to bake bread. The weight of anxiety was crushing me, and when she found me crying in my car in the driveway, she quietly crawled into my passenger seat quietly sat with me through my breakdown. Later, I found freshly cooked brownies outside my door. I was struck by her simple acts of love.
We did everything together. We took daily drives around town with the windows down and pop music blasting. We went grocery shopping to spare my parents from exposure risks. We swiped through my dating apps to make fun of people I went to high school with. We planned meals. We baked bread. We made whipped coffee and learned silly viral dances. I began to depend on my sister for social interaction because most of my college friends were completely checked out and not replying to texts or facetime calls.
A few weeks into the pandemic, the grief of missing "normal" life grew into a relaxing rhythm of online classes and having fun with my sister. Quarantine was anything but boring for us. We watched trashy reality TV, played video games with my brother, and learned how to process the loss of normalcy while still finding joy in simple things. My sister and I fell in love with taking care of each other.
I encouraged her to do virtual try-outs for the high school drill team. She motivated me to finish my college courses even though my drive was seriously lacking. For the first time in 15 years, my sister and I became friends.
In late April, I totaled my car. Our daily drives ceased, and we started to look for ways to make money to buy a new car. By the end of May, we had sewn and sold over 1,000 masks to people all over the world, learning how to sew from YouTube videos. I was able to buy a new car, and for a week we resumed the daily drives. But it was time to move into my new college apartment, and I left home after those long, but enriching, 87 days. I am forever grateful for my younger sister and her being my pandemic partner.
