I blame the Quarantine for long days and messed up sleep schedules I’m blaming the Quarantine for the masks we have to wear Hot and stuffy, It’s just another barrier between human connection “It’s for our protection” But still I blame the Quarantine For taking away our normal Face to face has a whole other meaning, Face screen face is our one way of convening I blame the Quarantine For being trapped inside on sunny days For separating us from friends For making us question the little actions we took for granted Once Upon A Time, Prom and Graduation were guaranteed Pandemics and uncontrolled disease were left in the past Too far to touch us I blame the Quarantine For bringing us to a new stage of life One that is different, Even good in some ways I blame the Quarantine For showing the positives of social media, For slowing life’s quick pace, For giving us the opportunity and time to look deep within ourselves For allowing us (for once) to relax and to be able to breathe the day in To spending time with family in ways we never would have before To making us realize what’s important And how to appreciate For all these things and many more, I blame the Quarantine
–Grace Kpor, Atlantis Charter High School Senior Grace Kpor
Twelve years of homework, twelve years of stress, twelve years of working so hard, all for the day I got to walk the stage with my closest friends. These last three months were supposed to be the best moments of my life. These months were the moments leading up to prom, senior week, graduation. And now all of that is gone. In three days, I have to go pick up a prom dress that I worked and saved money for, only to have it never be worn. My cap and gown will never leave my house. Twelve years of hard work and dedication, only to get the seat three months stripped away from us. The class of 2020 never really had it easy. We came into the world right around 9/11 and now we’re graduating in the midst of a global pandemic. The past twelve years have been vital to our lives. In these years we’ve learned, we’ve made friends, we’ve laughed, loved, and cried. We made relationships, some that only last a couple of years, and some that will last a lifetime. Many of the friendships made these past four years will certainly come to an end due to distance and separation. The whole point of senior week is to get in our last goodbyes, if we had known that our last day together was going to be our last day together, we could have made it worthwhile. After a long emotional time in our educational career, all our rights of passage are being taken away from us. All of this is out of our control, we can’t blame ourselves or anyone in particular. I blame the quarantine.
–Maggie D’Costa, Atlantis Charter High School Senior
“I blame quarantine”. This is the most common sentence used right now, especially by myself. From my plans during the summer, to situations to do with school, or even just plans I made during the day, it’s all ruined and I blame quarantine. But, there is one thing that I have this specific sentence for, and that’s graduation. Graduation was supposed to be the most memorable part of your life but, class of 2020 doesn’t get to experience the real graduation experience and I blame quarantine. This means, no walking the stage, no getting our diploma handed to us, no senior cookout, no walking around the school like every senior class got to, no senior activities, nothing but a virtual school year and possibly a virtual graduation ceremony. This is the saddest thing I’ve ever had to write about, not just for myself but for all of the class of 2020. Again, I blame quarantine for this and the loss of all the other good things we were going to experience. I’ve said the same sentence 3 times so far, imagine how many times I say it in a day. Quarantine has taken away many things including graduation. Some things I lost during this time that I blame quarantine for were my birthday ideas, my graduation party, a concert I was so excited to go to, family events such as my cousin’s baby shower, family cookouts on nice days, anything fun and memorable was taken from me and from us. This wasn’t our fault though, I blame quarantine.
–Jocelyn Sullivan, Atlantis Charter High School Senior
Melanie thought her sleep schedule was screwed up before, but damn was she in for a wild ride. Spending almost two months straight at home during her senior year of high school has made her think of a lot of things and realize a lot of things. She spends each day just laying on her bed either on her phone on Tik Tok or playing Animal Crossing on her switch lite, and with each day that goes by there is always that small moment before she goes to sleep at four a.m. that she starts overthinking everything and coming to realizations. She realizes that quarantine is basically a free trial into the transition from high school social life to college social life. It has made her realize that the people she isn’t talking to during quarantine are basically the people that she will lose contact in college. She thinks about all of her teachers that she has been ignoring emails from, and all of the friends she would talk to in class and begins to cry. She realizes her senior year is over and that she does not get to have a final good-bye to anyone from her high school that she would share laughs with on the daily. As she gets comfortable underneath her blanket to drift off into sleep as the sun rises, her mind still floods with memories from high school that were cut short. A tear glides down her cheeks as she thinks I blame the quarantine.
–Misha Medeiros, Atlantis Charter High School Senior
As time goes by things have only been becoming direr, at the beginning of the virus’s appearance, life proceeded as normal but within a few months, everything changed so quickly. Week after week the news is consistently filled with information that is worse than the last and cancellations, whether it’s trips, school, workplaces, are only becoming more common. It is implored for people to stay home and practice social distancing and it is evident that it is for the best. In a time like this, it’s important to remember to take time for yourself and to just relax and listen to music or watch a movie with no disruptions. But for many social distancing is now being done from a distance as well. With all of the changes occurring all at once and abruptly, it can be difficult to keep up, managing your time and rearranging schedules is not always something that can be figured out in a day. This is resulting in more stress and work than is manageable, to balance things out time is being taken away from things, from people, who bring a sense of normality to life, who keep you sane when you’re surrounded by insanity. To make things even more confusing, people are being taken out of work only for states to reopen back up within a month to ‘help the economy’; which is not worth jeopardizing safety. Nonetheless, complications are only continuing to rise and seemingly, connections are falling. I blame the Quarantine. As a community we are supposed to be cautiously containing ourselves during this fragile moment in history, but these contradictions are arising and endangering more people, doing more harm than good. I blame the Quarantine.
–Jada Barboza, Atlantis Charter High School Junior