Megan Cablk

March 14, 2020

This photo shows the last “normal” day of the year for me. Two of my friends and I went out to dinner to celebrate my birthday. While sitting in the dead center of a packed-to-capacity restaurant, I remember us making a bunch of jokes about the situation, even being excited that we got an extended spring break during our busy junior year. My actual birthday was on March 17, the first day of online learning, so I wasn’t able to do much that actual day. 

April 1, 2020

The first few months of quarantine saw a lot of family time. But, thankfully, my sister Elizabeth and I get along pretty well. We spent a lot of time working out together in the hopes we would get our seasons back, appearing downstairs at exactly 3 p.m. every day to annoy our poor mother, and laying on each other’s floors — saying nothing and separately on our phones — just to have some resemblance of human interaction for the day. Even though there were certainly points when tempers and annoyance flared, this period of time birthed many inside jokes and bizarre conversations for the both of us. Since we were the only people we were allowed to see, we did our best to provide consistent entertainment for our family (or at least, we think we’re pretty funny).

June 1, 2020

This summer saw the world in turmoil after the death of George Floyd, and Elizabeth and I knew we wanted to support the cause and the Black community as much as possible, understanding that we came from a spot of immense privilege. We knew that the rage we felt at the situation could not even begin to compare to the experiences of the Black community, but we knew that we needed to use our voices and our privilege for good, through educating ourselves, joining demonstrations, and contributing to charities when we could. This ignited a passion for social justice in my sister and I. Elizabeth, specifically, was able to use a relatively large social media following from her college soccer influence to educate her followers and advocate for voting in the election. We’ve always been a family that valued civic duty and showing love and support for all, but this summer really cemented that as a core value for our family. 

August 17, 2020

The end of the summer saw lower positivity rates and lifting restrictions, and when paired with my ability to get frequent COVID-19 tests at work, allowed me to spend some much needed time with my friends. Since we still wanted to be outside, we spent many nights on the Culver’s patio being (admittedly) obnoxious teenagers. 

September 1, 2020

And senior year begins! Coming off of the bad end to junior year, I tried to lower my expectations for senior year. Especially because we started entirely online, I tried not to think too much about all of the sports games, school events, and typical ‘senior year’ things that we understandably had to miss out on. Don’t get me wrong — I entirely understand the necessity of missing these things and I supported all decisions to keep us online and cancel events, but there are still times where I get upset about the things we’re missing out on. My wonderful riends and I have been trying our best to modify some events so that we can experience them in some way, as well as make bigger plans for the summer if the circumstances allow us to, but as the days continue to blur together it can be hard to not have a school dance or basketball game to look forward to at the end of the week. 

January 26, 2021

Now, I know I have skipped a lot of months, but nothing significant really happened during that time. I spent most of my days in my room, doing school work and working on things for the newspaper. After school, I would go to soccer practice or work on the days I didn’t have soccer. This was the peak of my days blending together, especially since my sister had gone back to school, leaving me the sole child in the house. Since positivity rates were skyrocketing, I stopped hanging out with my friends in an effort to protect my family and the residents at the nursing home where I worked. One of my friends did work with me at the nursing home, and, with similar worries about spreading the virus, we would stand outside of work for an hour (usually in the cold) talking to each other, since it was the only personal interaction we would get with people our age. These months were definitely difficult, and they’re the ones I remember the least from this year. Any thing I do remember could have happened on any day or at any time, nothing was particularly unique. Going into the hybrid schedule (this picture shows the first day we were back) was certainly a start to getting me out of that funk. I had somewhere to go and people to see, finally. 

Now

I don’t have a picture for this installment, but things are looking better, globally and locally. Lower positivity rates and increased vaccinations have allowed me to feel comfortable seeing my friends again, although there still is that lurking learned anxiety when more than three of us are in one place. School, work, and soccer keep me busy enough to have structure to my days, and the warmer weather is definitely encouraging in helping me look forward to the summer. The second semester “senioritis” is definitely setting in and motivation is a big issue for me sometimes, but I’m working on it. This year has certainly been “unprecedented,” “troubling,” and “uncertain,” as every person ever loves to describe it, but there have been epic highs throughout as well. I have made strong connections with my friends, got into my dream school to play soccer, and have learned a lot about my own resilience. This year brought a lot of hurt for many, including my family, but we have persisted, and we certainly won’t stop now.