This is the second diary entry written by my teenage daughter. For a virtual history class assignment, students are asked to write about the experience of living through a pandemic. (You can find Volume 1 HERE! I’ll continue to post her entries in order throughout this crisis.)
Week of March 16:
This was the week of Spring Break. Many of my friends had their vacations canceled, such as a cruise or a flight. Some were still able to go to their destinations. For my Spring Break, I had planned to go to track practices and hang out with friends. On Monday, I went to track practice at 9:00. It was a freezing and rainy day, so we had our practice indoors. Our practice consisted of running stairs, burpees, and mountain climbers. We finished this around 10:15, and then had an ab workout to complete before we could leave. We walked over to a carpeted area where everyone found a spot on the ground to lay down. We had just all laid down as our head track coach walked down the stairs and told us all we had to leave immediately. There was no time for a breakdown or post-practice talk. We just had to leave. He said to get everything from our lockers. We were not allowed in this building anymore. We all got up and left quickly- kind of nervous about what this meant for us. We couldn’t even be at school anymore for a practice.
I had planned to get my nails done after practice that day with one of my friends, so we still went to do that. The CDC, at this point, had said they only wanted 50 or fewer people at a gathering. This number was soon changed to only 10 people. My mom told me I would not be able to go out anymore, and we would have to go to the store to get supplies we needed to stay home. The stores were crazy!! Everyone was rushing to get things, so they could stay home. Paper items were completely empty. Bread and meats were limited. Boxed and canned goods were sold by the second. People were acting as though this was an apocalypse. It was kind of a scary thing to see. No one knew what was going to happen next.
During this week, my county had no positive cases, and testing sites were just now developing. In my state of Missouri, the only cases we had were found in our big cities of St. Louis and Kansas City. As this first crazy week wrapped up, cases in the US were rising dramatically, things were closing, and life was almost coming to a stop. At the end of the week, I found out school had been canceled until April 3. This meant prom was canceled, my first track meet was canceled, and many other school events. The hardest part of my experience is finding out what is canceled. Things you so badly want to do can’t happen, and it is hard to comprehend why. Nothing like this has ever happened before.
sharing the stairs 