Senior Spring Break...

 Ever since freshman year, I’ve been looking forward to my “senior spring break”. It’s something that has always been talked about and is one of those staple experiences to kick off going into the last quarter of high school. However, miss COVID had other plans. 

Every single aspect of my senior year, and a chunk of junior year, has been thrown out the window, and in an attempt to try and bring some normalcy back, a large number of people have opted to still go on senior spring break in decently sized groups. Not being able to go anywhere due to COVID is not even what is bothering me, but those who are disregarding COVID to travel unsafely is what is bothering me. 

It seems like everyone I know has decided that out of all places to go, Florida is the first pick. Personally, I don’t see the appeal. At least not now. I mean, I was even supposed to go to Florida with my friends before a lot of stuff happened. COVID is terrible there, there are TOO MANY people going (especially in decently large groups), and the people I know that are going don’t seem to think that social distancing or mask wearing when together is a good idea. I understand being with your family or a small bubble of people, but large groups of families and kids going together without considering or caring about the amount of risk they’re putting themselves or others in simply because they “need a vacation right now” seems completely incomprehensible to me. That last quote is literally a direct quote from multiple parents. 

Now don’t think that I’m a stick in the mud, I would love more than ANYTHING to be able to hang out with a bunch of my friends at a beach and be carefree for just a few days, but realistically it’s not possible without a significant amount of risk. Also I think it’s important to note that I’m not really bothered by the small groups getting tested and going safely, I’m frustrated by the people who don’t even think of COVID as a factor that needs to be considered in regard to this vacation. I just think that it’s really selfish of certain people to be so careless just so they can have a vacation that feels like things are back to “normal”, but fail to consider the fact that a lot of us have high risk family members, or just don’t want to be superspreaders that only contribute to the ridiculous spread of this virus. Sorry to burst their bubble but a small percentage of people getting vaccinated does not by any means mean that COVID is going to disappear, it can still spread to those who aren’t vaccinated! 

Even aside from those going on spring break, I’ve also seen far too many people going to huge parties with packed houses and zero masks. Listen, I’d love to be able to be in a packed place with all my friends having fun but right now that just isn’t realistic. It genuinely scares me seeing so many people completely disregard the current situation we’re all facing, making it worse in the process. 

So if it wasn’t clear from this post, I am not going to Florida. Instead I’ve opted to go up north to a lake house with my best friend, both of us having quarantined for weeks to make this happen.