Birthday, New Job and That Virus Everybody Keeps Talking About

Am I doing this social distancing thing right?

Can 2020 stop kicking us in the privates, please? This is a weird one because March 2020 would have been a pretty good month for me if it weren't for the elephant in the room that is COVID19. I had my 22nd birthday. It was a nice and quiet affair, to the point where I had a job interview that day (more on that later) but I'm 22, the time for big birthdays is over until I'm 30. I don't mind since I got to go out for a Chinese all-you-can-eat with my family and friends. The interview did put a damper on things until that very day, I was asked to go to a trial shift. After months of job-searching, I finally have something! I wanted a job more than anything so if you ask me, that's a great birthday present! The job itself is a kitchen porter at a lovely garden centre recommended by a friend of mine (who also works there). It's exhausting but it runs like a tight ship and everyone is both efficient and lovely so that's nice.

What isn't nice is this whole COVID19 business. I'm not going to lie, at first I didn't take it seriously. We've had worse illnesses than this and the mortality rate is low. However, as time went on, I began to understand the severity of the situation. It spreads fast, there's no cure or vaccine as of yet and both my parents are high-risk. Then the restrictions began. Most upcoming movies and TV shows have been delayed and the Comic-Con I was supposed to go to was postponed as were the shows I was going to be in (which is a shame since I recently got cast as the Pharoah in my drama club's production of Joseph and His Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat). More recently, pubs, restaurants and cafes have shut down. Luckily I'm not out of a job but it's all very uncertain. I know all sporting events have been cancelled as well but I don't care about them.

Now I can easily make the best of this. I stay in my room a lot, I have a lot of entertainment platforms such as books, DVDs and Netflix and I have enough social media to stay in contact with everyone. Plus, because of my freakishly strong immune system, COVID19 may not affect me as badly. My mum is also an expert in isolation due to her 101 conditions so she knows how to keep us entertained. For example, for her birthday, she decided to have a Christmas themed dinner complete with turkey rolls, Christmas songs and charades.

But I still worry. The Karens have stripped supermarkets clean of products so we're struggling to get food and I'm worried that when lockdown inevitably happens to us, we'll probably end up like The Shining but we'll make the best of it until this all blows over. This hasn't been helpful for my anxiety since I have no idea what I'm allowed to do now but I'll keep going.

Just hang in there everyone. This has been a terrible year for all of us and we're only 1/4 of a way through but we can do this. I'll let you know how I do when things get worse. Until then, fare thee well good people of the internet.

Meme of the Day: