This article is one in a series of stories featuring real experiences, thoughts and feelings from young people living in Cardiff during lockdown. To see the other stories, please click here.
Q1. During lockdown, what is the most important thing that you’ve learnt about yourself?
How little I rely on others and the outside world. I enjoy my own company evidently a lot more than the average person. Seeing others struggle a lot with lockdown (rightly so) made me realise this. I like being someone who enjoys their own company and can find their own ways to keep busy.
Q2. What has been your most memorable moment during lockdown?
The first thing that comes to mind is the many irrelevant thoughts that crossed my mind while I was supposed to be working/studying from home. Specifically, when I pondered how old the oak tree was in my garden while doing my assignment. So, instead of writing up the essay I was supposed to doing, I Googled how to find out the age of a tree without cutting it down. There is in fact a way to do this, so I went outside in my pyjamas, messy bun, and wearing my stepdad’s huge sliders with socks to go and measure the circumference of this tree with my little measuring tape. Well, turns out the tree is *very* big and I couldn’t get my arms around it, so I ended up looking like I went outside just to hug a tree. I even recorded the entire ordeal.
Another general memory is how weird everyone got during lockdown (I’m not complaining). For example, I heard a man singing opera really loudly on a microphone by my house… intentionally.
Q3. Explain what things that you miss most from your life before COVID-19. How will you not take them for granted in the future?
The main thing that I miss is seeing my grandparents and little cousins. They seem to be growing up so fast, and now I’ve missed out on an extra year (almost) of their childhood. It’s ironic because I made a new year’s resolution to start seeing my grandparents more often, but COVID ended up making that desire turn out completely opposite.