FROM PANIC TO A PLAN
My name is Aga, I am 21 years old and I live in Gdansk, Poland. When I heard we had to be quarantined for at least two weeks, I panicked. How could I survive so long without partying with my friends, or being able to meet them? How could I be in the same place for so long with my parents and my siblings (I have six and two of them are at a difficult age!)? Tears sprang from a fear that went through my entire body. However, that same night I started to think about what this was going to be like and came to the conclusion that I needed a plan. Since I can’t change the situation, I can at least try to make the best of it. So, I started to look for some new hobbies: I started to embroider, to participate in yoga sessions on Facebook and to finally sit down and do my maths homework, which had been waiting for me for a long time.
In these last two weeks I have spent more time with my brothers and sisters than in the last few months and I’ve found out all sorts of things about them (you would be quite surprised at how many girls my fifteen year old brother has already dated). I signed up as a volunteer to go shopping for older people during the time of the epidemic, thinking it was the ideal excuse to leave home and, at the same time, do something good for others. I shall never forget the look of gratitude on the face of an old lady after I spent half an hour in the rain for her, queuing to enter a pharmacy. It was so rewarding for me. I also have plenty of opportunity to spend long periods of time alone with myself. While I’m embroidering I have time to think about things I would never have thought about if it hadn’t been for this situation.
I read something on the internet which I’ve taken as my guide for the time ahead:
Staying at home for the next two weeks is an expression of universal solidarity, deep humanism and responsibility for the destiny of other people; it is an opportunity to demonstrate one’s intellectual and emotional maturity and an opportunity for comprehensive development through reading, cinema classics and creative activity. It is also a way of loving your neighbour, a practical consequence of the fifth commandment and a great opportunity for you to deepen your interior life this Lent.
Agnieszka Kwiatek
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