Were they just games?

We were all home. It felt as if I was back to being 10, and all my cousins were still young as me, just relaxing at home after we finished school as we were still too young to go out on our own. We kept hearing news on how we should not have any contact with a lot of people, but it felt so tempting not to get together when we were home all day. We learnt each-other’s schedules, subject, professors, the assignments due and everything related to school. We would then make plans on when to meet and what games to play, to get our minds off our studies.

There were so many games we wanted to play. We started with the games indoors first, paper games, puzzles, uno, ludo and we even ordered monopoly online because we were tired of playing on our phones. I remember us gathering every night for hours and hours to play monopoly, while sipping coffee and having a piece of freshly baked cake, something we baked almost every day for a few weeks, until we decided it was time to get in shape because summer was coming. Those were also the hours where I felt at peace, and most of the time even my cheeks hurt from all the laughing. Soon after, the games indoors started to get boring as we were witnessing more and more the beauty of spring, the afternoon sunshine and the warm weather. One day, I came outside to find a ping-pong table in the garden, and everyone was out playing. It was like the new year had come earlier. The games on that ping-pong table were not the best part, the fighting of who was next in line to play and who won and who lost became the highlight of my days.

The time I spent playing were the times I got to connect with my cousins. At first it was just us playing games, but then we started to talk more about what we were feeling. Everyone was experiencing the lockdown differently, sometimes things did not make sense, not to them, not to me. I felt like the whole pressure of school, of not having the freedom to go out whenever you felt like you needed to take deeper breaths because of all the overwhelming feelings, the constant bad news that just kept coming and coming, missing my friends, not knowing if we will be back to normal soon, were the reasons that at some point I felt emotionally numb, but I always had my cousins who I could count to call and play “the games” when my heart felt empty but also heavy.

What is happening?

I was anxiously preparing for the presentation I had the next day when my roommate came into my room because she had just heard that we will have two weeks off. My stomach was already full of butterflies, and now felt like it will explode from the sudden relief and confusion I felt.

Just minutes after the news, we started hearing our neighbors chatting with each other on the balcony and they were planning to go get food because the situation would get worse. I could not believe what I was hearing, it sounded funny and I just kept repeating to myself that everything would get back to normal in two weeks. Ignoring what we had just heard, we went to our nearest supermarket to get snacks because we would for sure be celebrating the two weeks of what we thought would be a perfect spring holiday. To our surprise, the supermarket was full of panicked adults who were shopping like the world was ending and were giving the strangest looks to the people around. I got stuck, it felt as if I was the only one not scared and panicked. I did not even want to buy anything anymore because, suddenly, I lost all my appetite and the wish to celebrate something I thought would be the most relaxing weeks of the new year.

It was the next day, then the other, and as days kept passing, I started to realize that that night I had no idea what was happening. The whole world is in lockdown. Everyone is panicking. We have a lot of “free” time. Cooking is becoming a passion. Anxiety is rising. Friends are lost. Friends are gained. Family relationships are thriving. The funniest memes are made. Self-love journeys. Online life. WHAT IS HAPPENING? I feel confused. Don’t you?