Seeing the Go0d

Seeing the Positive Through a Frightening Year

by macie brown

Restaurants are empty, people are distanced in masks, stores are closed and people are staying in and spending more time with their families.

2020 started out as a year to look forward to, but eventually took a turn for the worst. A deadly pandemic gripped not only the United States, but the world. Businesses started to shut down one by one and governors ordered mask mandates as the death toll increased each day. Even though 2020 has been a year filled with a lot of loss, there have been many positives.

People have been staying inside with their families and have gotten to know each other more and spend time together. 60% of families say that they have come out of quarantine closer and more connected to each other. People who had busy lives before the pandemic now have some extra time to focus on things they enjoy since everything has slowed down, and people learned to appreciate the privileges they had before the pandemic.

Jenna Estravillo, a sophomore at Whitefield Academy, said that quarantine had some positive effects on her. She said that she had a lot more time to pick up new hobbies, but she also had time to get better at what she has always loved to do. “I was able to work on golf and spend time with God,” Estravillo said. She said that doing these things helped her to have more of a positive mindset through the rough time and helped her carry on the new habits that she picked up after quarantine ended. In such an unpredictable period of time where nobody knew what was going to come next, it was important to keep a positive

mindset. Many people became overwhelmingly sad and stressed about things they couldn’t control and waited for a vaccine to help fight the virus. All they could do to help was stay in their house and wear their mask when they went outside. But keeping in mind the positive outcomes of a time like this and seeing the good through the bad that is happening helps things to be a little better and less stressful.

Richard Ballard, father of Kassidy Ballard who is a student at Bullitt East, said that a positive from his time in quarantine was getting closer to his daughter. “I was still able to go to work thankfully, but for awhile I had to work from home and since my daughter stayed home too, we got to spend more time together,” Ballard said. “We also both got closer to my mom and dad because we were going to check on them a lot more often which was nice. We are usually so busy that we barely get to see them,” Ballard added. Ballard said that before quarantine, they were very busy because of his work schedule and his daughter‘s cheer, but after his daughter decided not to do cheer and they couldn’t go as many places because of the pandemic, it cleared up a lot of time for them.

Estravillo also said that spending more time with family was a big positive during quarantine. “I was able to spend more time with my family and get really close with my sister. I was also able to help more around the house as much as I could,” Estravillo said. Estravillo said that she got to know her family so much better just by spending more time with them and realized how valuable it was having their company during these difficult times.

The Brown family sits down at their kitchen table to play a board game. After staying in the house all day, they were looking for something fun to do to pass the time. “It is difficult to keep ourselves entertained while staying in the house so much, but playing games is something fun to do that we all enjoy,” commented Natalie Brown. Photo Credit: Macie Brown