“Distant Socializing”: How a high school senior is adapting to life and staying at home

Saturday, April 11, 2020

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In these pressing times, it is more important than ever to reach out to a friend, be transparent, and ask how they're doing. 

By Tarun Amasa, Fairview High School | April 13, 2020
Tarun Amasa lives in Boulder and is a senior at Fairview High School. Tarun is passionate about civic engagement and serves as a board member on the Tony Grampsas Youth Services Board. 

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In these pressing times, it is more important than ever to reach out to a friend, be transparent, and ask how they're doing. 
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The past few weeks with COVID-19 has been anything but predictable. As a senior at Fairview High school, I, like many of my peers, was excited to graduate. At first, when school was canceled, we all were happy to get some time off. But as the days progressed, we were all left thinking about our last day at school and all the final hugs and goodbyes we never had a chance to give. Now, we would all give up the extra days sleeping in for an opportunity to go back to our first-period class. 

As the days have gone by, my initial feelings of shock have stabilized, and I've begun to think differently about the situation at hand. In every way, I believe that social distancing is an absolute necessity, and we all have an essential role to play in keeping each other safe. While it's been difficult not to see any of my friends, apps like Snapchat, Instagram, and Zoom make it easy to be interconnected with each other. Instead of "Social Distancing,” I really think we should think of it as "Distant Socializing." In these pressing times, it is more important than ever to reach out to a friend, be transparent, and ask how they're doing. 

The best thing of all is spending more time with my parents, sister, and new puppy. With the prior speed of school and work, our interactions were limited, but now, it's the opposite. With online classes and my parents working from home, we've had more conversations and spent quality time together: Something I deeply value, knowing I'll be far away next year in college.

I am incredibly grateful for our first responders and essential workers who are at the front line, and their work should be highly commended. To stop the spread of COVID-19, I believe we need the engagement of everyone in our community in new capacities. My mom often purchases groceries for our more elderly neighbors, and I've been working to support local nonprofits like Response4Life, an initiative to build and distribute 200,000 low-cost ventilators to hospitals in need.

As always, if you are immediately concerned about yourself or a friend, please use the resources below: