Adjusting To Home After Two Months Abroad

The only thing worse than coming home early from study abroad is coming home early and not being allowed to leave your house. 

Not that I wasn’t happy to be with my family – I most definitely was. In fact, I was really excited to be back in the U.S. and to experience all the familiarities that come with it. However, it’s kind of hard to experience either of those things when you’re not allowed to leave your home. 

Not to mention, it’s torture to be about an hour away from your friends, whom you haven’t seen in two months, and not allowed to see them. 

Thankfully, though, my mom had the amazing idea of getting a puppy just a few days into me being home. And with that, my quarantine blues seemed to fade away. 

Meet Red, an Australian Cattle Dog otherwise known as a red heeler. He is easily the light of my life and the cutest thing in the world when he’s not trying to mercilessly bite any appendage within reach. 

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About a week or so into me being home, my dad got really sick. He was still out and about working at that point so I wasn’t really worried that I had given him coronavirus from being abroad, but having someone who’s really sick at home definitely made me worry about someone in the household getting the virus and bringing it home to him while he wasn’t doing well. 

He was actually doing so badly that he got tested for the virus but thankfully didn’t have it. Instead, he had pneumonia. It took him awhile to get better and back to work, but he did make a full recovery and is doing really well. 

The first few times I made it outside, things didn’t feel too weird to me. At that point, the majority of people weren’t wearing masks or gloves and despite the fact that the stores weren’t as busy, things still seemed relatively normal. 

After about a month into being home, though, everything started to have an apocalyptic vibe. I remember going to Sam’s Club with my family and genuinely being pretty freaked out by how many people were wearing masks and gloves as well as how people were acting. You could tell everyone was trying to keep their distance and were just generally uneasy. 

I reached out to one of my friends from the Czech Republic, Lucy, to find out how adjusting to home was for her in her country. She told me that when she came back everything was pretty depressing. 

Unlike the friendliness she had been met with in Ireland when the pandemic was first breaking out, in the Czech Republic, people were behaving unpleasantly simply because everyone was scared and didn’t really know what was going on. 

She said that when she got picked up from the airport, her brother didn’t even hug her, and she had to sit in the back seat in case she had the virus. 

According to Lucy, it looked like the apocalypse immediately because everyone wore masks and not many people were outside. With time, though, people stopped acting so scared. 

People can now go outside in groups of 10and the pubs and shops are even starting to open, she said. Due to how seriously everyone in the Czech Republic took the virus there haven’t been nearly as many cases there as other parts of the world. 

Since being home, I’ve mostly just gone to the store with my mom and family as well as on a few other essential errands and eventually did see my lovely friends in Tempe about a month into being back. 

All the while, I’ve finished all my schoolwork at DCU and ASU and have been keeping up with my blog. 🙂

Since being home, I’ve read a few books with a friend, helped illustrate a book for another friend’s birthday and have completed four 1,000-piece puzzles. (Yes, I know I have a problem.)

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I’ve almost completely rewatched “The Office” and am not prepared for the feeling of emptiness that will inevitably come when I finish it (again.) 

As a lot of you may know, I was supposed to be in Ketchikan, Alaska, this summer working through the cruise ship season as a tour guide and server. My summers in Ketchikan have been some of the best of my life and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t really disappointed I’m not there right now. 

Due to all the cruise ships being canceled until at least July 1 because of the coronavirus, I will rather regrettably not be going up to Alaska this summer like I wanted. 

Somehow, Alaska has still managed to pull through for me because instead I will be working with one of my dearest friends, Brooke, who I met and became really close to during my first summer in Alaska. 

Her family was kind enough to hire me as a ranch hand for the summer on their ranch in Kingman, Arizona, and I am so excited to start working and spending the summer with my lovely friend, who I also haven’t seen in about a year and a half. 

I know most everyone’s plans have been foiled or just flat out canceled because of COVID-19, but I sincerely hope you all make the most of your summer in whatever way you can. 

Whether it’s going home to spend the summer with your family, asking your friends for a favor and spending the summer with them or even just spending the summer working on yourself and your goals, there’s still so many ways to make the best of this difficult situation. 

And I sincerely hope you find those ways.