It has taken me awhile to actually admit it, but I miss quarantine. Yes. I’m talking about the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak when businesses were just starting to close and lockdown was just starting to kick in. Crazy, right?!

The reason why it has taken me so long to admit this to myself is because during the midst of the self-quarantining and chaos, all I could seem to preach at the time was how much I missed reality. I missed going out to eat, visiting my family, and craziest of all; going to school! Due to the pandemic, I was unable to celebrate my high school graduation in traditional fashion, and even as someone who hated high school, at the time I was still a little bummed out by this. However, looking back, I wouldn’t have it any other way!

As bars and restaurants in Chicago and all over the country are transitioning into outdoor seating and opening up non-essential businesses, I am beginning to realize how much I miss the comfort of quarantine. Despite being petrified of me or possibly a family member catching the coronavirus, I didn’t realize at the time how much I loved having no worries, no responsibilities, and all the time in the world to just focus on one thing: MYSELF! Being in quarantine was a once in a lifetime experience and I have decided to use every day of it to expand my horizons as a human being. (Yes, that entails learning how to cook from Rachael Ray’s stay home show and painting naked women on dollar store canvases.) 

When I talk to people about the coronavirus and how it has affected them, it always surprises me how much they claim to hate this “new normal” that we’re living in. They complain about having to wear facemasks and how the economy needs to open back up fully amongst many other aspects of this virus. It surprises me because personally, at least my opinion now, couldn’t disagree more. I can’t be the only one who finds comfort in wearing a face mask in public (no makeup!) and there’s nothing I miss more than the empty roads of early quarantine. You know…that time when everybody was hoarding toilet paper and buying ramen noodles in bulk as if it was the apocalypse. Open roads = no road rage!

All I am trying to say is that it is easy to look at the cons of the quarantine. Obviously many of us miss our regular lives and are saddened that some of the events we look forward to each summer have been cancelled (I won free Kenny Chesney tickets…I get it) but if we continue to move forward with this mindset, we won’t return to our regular lives (when the time comes) with a healthy mindset. That’s why it’s important to look at the pros of quarantine; you are living in an unprecedented time in history (that is super cool!), you are potentially saving lives by taking the precautions, and most of all…you get to listen to your favorite celebrities sing Stand By Me by Ben E. King during almost every commercial! I mean c’mon, it doesn’t get more comforting than that!