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'The Day The World Changed,' Westchester Girl Reflects On Covid-19 Pandemic

The following are thoughts on the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic from a 12-year-old Northern Westchester County resident: Alexandria Pryzgoda, a student at the Lakeland Copper Beech Middle School in Shrub Oak:

Alexandria Pryzgoda

Alexandria Pryzgoda

Photo Credit: Contributed

We went home joking, we thought it would never get this bad, we thought staying home would be fun. 

 Boy were we wrong. We were told not to go to school, we were told it would be for about a week. 

 We left New York to stay safe, to keep me safe. We went to New Hampshire, it was safer there. We could still go outside, to the beach, and to the store, that didn’t last forever. 

About two weeks later, the beach closed, but I still had my walks to the store. Then weeks passed, it wasn’t safe to go to the store anymore, my only source of fun was gone. 

 For weeks we had been told by judgemental people (who didn’t know how to keep their mouth shut) to go back to New York, but we had come before it got really bad, we didn’t understand, what if we lived here full time, what if we couldn't change our license plates. 

 While that was happening, every other day I would cry, I would think of the fun I used to have. That one day, the worst day of it all, that was the day the world changed.

We were told there was going to be no more school for the rest of the year, I was sad, but at least I wasn’t an eighth or 12th grader who’s last year of that school was taken away, what I didn’t know was I was so wrong. 

 The eighth-grade year came along, “Only for two more months” they said, I believed them. Two months pass, “Only one more month,” they said, I believed them. One month passed, “You will be able to go to high school,” they said, I didn’t believe them, it was a good thing I didn’t. 

 High school comes along, “You just have to wait one month,” they said, yet another lie. 

 Years pass, There are few families that aren’t infected, over seven billion are infected with the coronavirus. At this point, I’m not even allowed to be near my family, everybody with asthma or other things that make you more susceptible have been taken away from their family. 

 Every year they lied, every year they said “Next year” until it was the end of senior year, my dream of going to college was gone, I never even applied, I had no need to.

I knew I was never going to enjoy school, I knew I was never going to get a job, I knew my life was over. 

 I am now 25, I am still in isolation, they told us to not get our hopes up, they told us there is no way to stop it. 

 They told us to write our story, they told us it would be to help the next generation, they told us that they would name it after us but they didn’t tell us what the name would be. 

The reason I am not saying COVID-19 is that it has mutated and humans can get all strands of it now, 19 being the year it started and the number of strands there are of it. 

 Oh, I almost forgot, it's my 26th birthday soon, they give us a cupcake on our birthday, that’s the most fun we have had after the day the world changed. 

~Alexandria (Aka: #10952)

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