Positives of my current situation

I’m currently at home with my family, doing classes online. While there are some things I don’t like about this current situation (I miss my friends, my family can be a lot, the news is sad, etc.), there are actually a lot of genuine benefits, too. 🙂

• I get to be home during springtime!!! I love spring. (could you tell from my username? lol) It is my favorite season. I go to school in an urban area, and my family’s home is in a more rural area. I haven’t been home during spring for 3 years, and it’s really nice to be here again and to get to watch all the flowers come up. The air smells so good. There’s so much nature here, and I get to watch it all unfold from the earth.

  

  Blue hyacinths

  

  Glory-of-the-snow

• I get to spend time with my sister. She is in middle school (a fair bit younger than me), and I was sad when I went to college because I knew I’d miss out on watching her grow up. Now I get to spend time with her every day, in person, for several months. 🙂
• I can compare being home now to the times I’ve been home in the past and see how much progress I’ve made. I expected coming home this time to be a struggle, as is usually is. And it has been hard at times. But overall, it’s been a lot better than it’s been in the past. We’ve had several family dinners that didn’t end in arguments! This is pretty amazing to me. From what I can remember, we’ve rarely eaten dinner together in the past few years, let alone eaten it together peacefully and made pleasant conversation. My communication with my mom is also so much better than it’s been in the past. We talk about stuff, I tell her things, and neither of us gets upset! We talk through our conflicts. It’s amazing.
• I don’t have to walk to class. Walking to class was getting to be pretty painful because of joint pain. Now I get to skip all that. 🙂 I also don’t have to go outside when it’s rainy, windy, or cold. I can even wrap myself up in a blanket during class.
• People are making an effort to reach out and stay connected with others. In the past when I’ve been home on a break, I wanted to stay in touch with my friends, but they didn’t seem to want to stay in touch with me as much. Now everyone seems to be making a real effort to stay connected. I’m facetiming, zooming, and texting my friends regularly. It’s not just me reaching out to people and not hearing anything back; people are replying, and some people are reaching out to me first!
• I kind of got a job because of the coronavirus crisis?! I’m studying mechanical engineering, people need ventilators, and mechanical engineers have a lot of the skills required to design and make ventilators… someone asked me to join their team making a new ventilator, so, that’s what I’ll (hopefully) be doing soon and continuing this summer! 😮 It’s really nice to feel needed for the actual things that I have invested in studying in school. It makes me feel good about my choice of major, and I’m proud to be studying this and to be able to help. It also gives me a very tangible reason to do my homework and stay motivated!

Are there any positives in your current situation?