During quarantine, there are days when I wake up unexcited to begin my day. I lethargically get out of bed, wash my face, brush my teeth, eat something, then get back into bed–only this time sitting up, legs crossed–to start my homework. Depending on the day I can usually spend between 2 and 6 hours just doing schoolwork. Then, after I put away my books and minimize the Safari window on my laptop I have dedicated to Blackboard and WordPress, I go on my phone, or watch a movie, or bake cookies, or do my makeup for no reason. I do this for the entire day, until I decide it’s time to get ready for bed so that I can start the process all over again. This is how I would describe my day to someone who asked but didn’t really care for the answer, with small details left out. Like how my cat fell asleep on my lap (which they almost never do), or how the cookies I made came out burnt but I ate them anyway, or how the movie I wanted to watch wouldn’t load so instead I put on Parks and Rec despite having seen it about 17 times. I describe my days as if I am the only party involved, but this is far from the truth.

When I think about the mental state I would be in during this quarantine if I didn’t have my sister, I feel for the people that are going through this alone. My days are uneventful but not unpleasant because they are spent with her. I watch movies with her, I bake cookies with her, we do our makeup together. It almost feels as if nothing has changed, like we are just having a particularly boring summer. Of course, I realize this is not the case, and that the state of the world seems to be unravelling as I write this. But still, I am a person who is fortunate enough to be experiencing this pandemic in the comfort of my own home, and therefore this is the perspective I have been afforded.

Some of my friends have no siblings living with them, and so they spend their days the same way so many others do, reminiscing on a time before going outside struck a paranoid nerve. They solitarily make themselves busy enough to distract them from feelings of anxiety of loneliness. I am someone who is lucky enough to have siblings to pass the time with and to actually get along with those siblings, something I do not take for granted.

I can’t imagine the headspace I would be in if I were going through this on my own. If I were one of the people who became stranded because of their location when all of this became too serious to ignore. This is not a situation I want to be in, of course, but I am not a person that can justify complaints about being lonely in quarantine, because I am not lonely. I’m allowed to feel scared and upset and anxious, as is everyone else in the world, but I am lucky enough to not feel alone. And that is something that I do not take lightly.