Student Perspective: "As cliche as it sounds, COVID-19 changed my life completely"

 As cliche as it sounds, COVID-19 changed my life completely. From watching Outer Banks on Netflix and becoming my home’s personal barista to doing brand deals in front of 2.6 million people with Target and Walmart, it is safe to say my life a year ago was much different. During quarantine, I was depressed, in a funk, and very much not happy with my senior year. I was totally having a pity party (like the rest of the Class of 2020), but for some reason, I decided that my sadness would be cured if I chose to redo a shed in my backyard. You may be thinking, “Did this girl just say a shed?” and “What does she mean by redo?”. Well, I come from a long line of DIYers, “do it yourself-ers”, and with an exorbitant amount of time on my hands and an ugly shed at my disposal, I figured there was no better time to renovate it.

  It’s hard for me to recall the moment in which I made the decision to film the process of creating my “She Shed,” but all I know is that I did it. The app called “TikTok” is where I posted my short films and it quickly garnered millions of viewers. Within a matter of two weeks, I had two million people following me. I went from being bored out of my skull, to not having enough time in the day to film and edit these viral 60-second films. Agents from Los Angeles were fighting over my representation rights while I was simultaneously learning how to mentally handle thousands of nasty comments from rotten, old cyberbullies. At one point, a production company made me a profile and pitched me to HGTV for my own television show! It didn’t end up happening because I didn’t have a degree in interior design, but as you can believe I was pretty in shock with this entire experience. And my parents, oh - my good ol’ parents, they were just as astonished as I was! Something you should know is that I am the kind of person that always waits for the other shoe to drop, as they say. If something is going “too good” then I expect a catastrophe to happen to mess it all up. Well, this mentality has proven to be faulty and quite unhealthy because a year later that shoe is nowhere near from dropping. It has taken me this long to actually openly talk about the entire experience. If you knew me in person, you would find that I really don’t talk about Tik Tok much or what I do. This is mainly because I don’t EVER want to come off like I am bragging or snotty. For me, there's a difference between talking from a place of gratitude and from talking from a place of egotism. Just to be clear, my only goal from responding to this prompt is to exemplify an attitude of gratefulness for the experiences catalyzed by the dreaded COVID-19. A year later, I have now renovated a majority of my home and worked with a few of my all-time favorite brands. I’m no longer in my three-year-long high school relationship, I am financially independent, I have found friends in college that are going to be in my wedding, and I have grown into a fantastic businesswoman. Don’t be fooled, it is not all sunshine and rainbows in the life of __________ (I am trying to be mysterious and keep this anonymous, hehehe). On a real note, I still struggle with anxiety and depression and am often lonely despite my 2.6 million “friends” on Tiktok. Quite frequently, I feel immense pressure to constantly exceed the expectations of those around me and to always be “on” for them. Next year, I hope I am still doing what I love and can grow my new business called Playbooked. At the end of the day, COVID-19 has brought about some big life changes for me that have left me in a far different circumstance than I was last year. But, when it comes down to it I am still a girl who loves watching Outer Banks and can make a mean cup of coffee.

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